The Forsworn
by Sita Seraph
Summary: Psychological relatings, and mental abuse. When love gets out of hand, out of control, and out of mind. Where beliefs are lies. This will be Heero's last chance. Yaoi. 1x2, ???x2
1. Rejected

Title: Rejected

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Death fic, angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, death, angst, depression

Summary: None yet.

Archive: Go right ahead.  Please e-mail me so I know where you are going to throw it, okay?

Blank.  That's all I could feel at the moment.  Emptiness, that swallowed me up.  Right now, it was eating away my gut; the burning hole that felt like it went right through me.  Like a bullet, it had gone right through my stomach and left an empty space where it went through.  Sorry, man, you were just in my way.  Ah, no problem.  I really didn't need that part of my body anyway.

Hey, at least I got my sarcasm still, right?  That's a good sign.  Even though I feel like dying at the moment, I can still laugh at the face of death, eh?  He is just waiting for me to close my eyes and give up the fight, to just die slowly in this white tub I had thrown myself into.  Yeah, sitting right on the edge, watching me and running his cold, lifeless fingers down my leg.

Oh, wait.  That was my blood.

Hazily, I opened my swollen eyes.  They hurt so much, I couldn't stand to keep them open for very long.  It was like getting punched in the eye, but worse.  My very lids felt like they had been cut open and my blood coursed over my eyes.  But I knew better.  That wasn't blood, nor were they cut.

They were my tears.

Lets face it, I've been sobbing all night.  You'd think that being a man, I would be able to stop in a short hour.  But oddly enough, salty water kept pouring forth, like a wound that refused to stop bleeding.  That had to be it.  My eyes were wounded.  Or maybe my brain.  I think the switch in my mind short-circuited so my tears didn't know when to stop themselves.  Yeah, that's why my eyes hurt so badly.  Stupid tears.

But then again, my whole body ached.  Raising gentle fingers to my face, I winced as they touched my cheek.  My tears seemed to have acid in them, for they left them red and swollen, like the rims of my eyes.  Maybe they were the tears that I had held back for so long.  Too long.  They had raged against me, trying to get free from my broken gaze.  But I wouldn't let them.  I wouldn't let anyone see me cry, not ever.  I had to swallow them all up and there they stayed, in the bottom of my throat, awaiting their chance to rise again with their picks and thorns to stick in my eye and break the shield that I held them at bay with.

My shield must have broken tonight.  And out they tumbled, a river of them from my violet pupils.  With joyous cries they flew out, driving their thorns into my cheeks in vengeance for keeping them away, for keeping them inside.  Take this, they cried and stabbed at my cheeks.  Oh, God, they hurt so much.  Not a thousand blows could compare to the acid stained on my face.  Water did nothing to help, for as soon as the cold stream hit my face, my tears would break again and out they tumbled and into the sink.  Damnit, you are such a child, I screamed inwardly.  But my tears would not stop, no matter how much I beckoned them to leave me be.  I've been tortured enough; now leave me alone to die.

Drawing my quivering digits away from my swollen face, I stared with a blurred vision at my bare feet.  It was amazing that I had gotten this far in my life without stumbling or falling.  I didn't need anyone's help to get me here and I was proud of that.  But my whole life, it seemed to me that I had been walking on glass.  As I took another heavy step from the shattered shards, behind me trailed my red blood, staining the clean ground that had been once set before me.  My next step, I must have taken a large piece with me for it left me wounded for life.  My walk continued onwards, my steps getting heavier every time I touched the ground.  More blood trailed behind me, spreading out and indicating the blood bath of innocent soldiers I had murdered on the way.  My blood was burning me now, making my knees feel like jelly and my mind lightheaded.  I had lost so much; why hadn't I fallen yet?  But, no, I continued onwards, taking a few slower, hesitant steps.  The blood began to clear, leaving smaller amounts after the slow progress I was making.  Yes, I was going to make it.  The glass was going to clear soon and then my blood and all the pain would soon stop.  My feet would heal and then I would be able to run and prance forward, sing and laugh, whenever I wanted.  I would make my future a bright and clean one, full of passion, love, and peace.  I couldn't wait.  So I made that one, large leap, where I was sure the glass had stopped and the sharp edges would never hurt my tender feet again.

But you weren't there.  My future, you, weren't there.  I landed hard on painful, cutting shards and I cried out in agony, pain, and betrayal.  Finally, I had fallen onto my knees, then my hands.  I collapsed; I was too weakened by the pain in my heart to pull myself up again.  There you were, all you had to do was hold out your arms, and I would have done anything for you.  Anything at all, even cross that blood terrain again.  But you had turned away and I had fallen.  I can't pull myself up, I just can't.  Everything hurts so much.  My life was Hell.  I had walked so far, expecting you at the end of my trail and yet you had denied my love and shoved it right back in my face.  How can anybody rise after that?  How can anybody be whole and not cry for weeks with such ruthless denial?  And so, there I lay, surrounded by my own red fluid.  Choking on it.  Coughing in it.  Dying in it.

My hand had, unconsciously, tightened on the blade.  I unhooked my white fingers and switched the sharp shaving knife to my other hand.  I unraveled my aching fingers up and down, waiting for the blood flow to go to my plaster white fingers.  And watching them, with a hazy vision, I remembered when I had my first chance to touch your face.  I remember the confusion in your mute stare and I remember smiling and driving these same digits into your brown locks.  So soft and smooth, unlike my dull and ratty hair, like I had always imagined it.  I remember the slow realization kicking in and your eyes begin to widen.  But I couldn't stop now; I had to show you my feelings.  And though my practiced speech was caught up in my throat, I allowed myself to do the only thing that would come to my overwhelmed, block-headed mind.

I kissed you.  Lowering my lips, I kissed you.  Soft but firm, I wanted to show you so much.  I wanted you to feel the same way.  I thought you did, honestly, I did.  But my delusional mind must have made the whole thing up, for I never expected such a rough answer as I plopped my heart down at your feet.

I remember your cold hands and the way you shoved me away.  Hard and violent.  My mind couldn't register anything with such quick movement, but it was too late anyway.  I felt the blow.  I felt that rock hard fist slam into my lower jaw.  I must have sky rocketed, for I felt my feet leave the ground and I collapsed hard on my back.  The wind from my lungs escaped my lips with a startled glee and I thought I heard a crack in my jaw.  I looked up with confused eyes and you towered over me, fury burning in those beautiful pools of blue.  You hated me.  Loathed me.  That friendship we had…It was nothing, wasn't it?  I had ruined it, hadn't I?

My answer came with a sharp blow to my gut and again, my oxygen left my burning lungs.  Pain lanced through my body and for a second, I thought I had blacked-out.  I knew then that I would never piss you off again for the sake of my life. 

I'm so sorry, koi…I didn't mean to make you angry with me…

I had deserved it anyway.  I should have spoken, not acted.  But when my mouth was actually useful for once, I could find nothing to say and my mind went blank.  I just wanted to kiss you so badly.  I really thought…I really thought you liked me too.  And that the glass would stop and I'd fall into your awaiting arms.  And we would walk together into our bright new future, leaving the blood and ammo behind.

I was really wrong, wasn't I?

"Oh, God," I sobbed and I felt the tears swell up again.  I knew I couldn't stop them and my lungs burned even as I tried to control them.  But it was useless; they escaped and sent their acid trail down my cheeks.  Oh, it hurt so much.  So much!  I had to end the pain now; I couldn't take it anymore.  The glass had reappeared and it was scratching at my body, clawing at me with its sharp edges.  Blood; blood everywhere.  I just wanted to shut my eyes and make it all go away.  I didn't want to see the red anymore.  I didn't want to wake up every morning and wish I could scream in anguish.  Just scream, scream, scream, scream, and scream!  Until my voice gave out and I could no longer mutter a single word.  I wanted to tear out my hair and throw the ugly brown locks away and feel my naked skull.  I wanted to take this blade in my hand and drive it everywhere in my body.  

Insane.  

Madness.

I know that.  But that's what love does to you.  I wanted to be with you.  I wanted to be with you so bad that it hurt.  But now I know I can never have you.  You don't want me, not like I want you.  You would never want to scream bloody murder.  You would never want to tear your hair out.  You would never want to kill yourself.

Not for me.

Not for anyone.  

You had a life.  You had a purpose.  My purpose was you.  You were all I ever wanted in my goddamn, stupid life.  You let me fall, though.  And I can't get back up.  I can't stand back up.  I've fallen for good, this time.  I'll ignore your stupid hands and your probing for me to stand.  Not this time.  Not ever.

I'm gone.  I've had enough.  I can't take this life anymore.  You were my last hope.  You shattered it like any other person with a single bullet.  I can't take it anymore.  I can't!  Damn you all to Hell!

Without a second thought, I raised the blade to my open wrist.  This was going to be the last person whose blood I was going to shed.  Yes, killing myself was the most appropriate thing I had ever done in my life.  I've shed so many other people's blood – why not shed mine?

The blade dug in and I sliced upwards.  A second passed.  And then my crimson flow emerged from my pale flesh and I gave a sigh of relief.  Yes, I was very ready to die.  I watched the red river drip quickly to the white surface of the tub and I felt no pain.  No, how could I feel any more pain?  This wound was nothing against the shattered pieces that once made my heart.  Enough was enough.  My vision blurred.  I was going to die.  I was never afraid of death.  Not now, not later.  I was going to die.

Suddenly, every thing was dark.

To Be Continued…


	2. Overlooked

Title: Overlooked – Continuing _Rejected_

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: None yet.

Archive: Go right ahead.  Please e-mail me so I know where you are going to throw it, okay?

You know, I thought I could take anything that stood in my way.  Nothing could keep me down for long; if I had a purpose in the end, I would finish it.  I wouldn't let anything block my vision; I refused to be put down.  If there had been a bullet aimed for my shoulder, I would have just let it run its course and I would keep running to my destiny.  If there had been codes and passwords, I would rip up the stupid blocks that tried to keep me from finding the secret letters underneath.  And if there had been a human being that dared to stand in my way, have pity on their soul, for they would be lucky to stand again.  I would NOT have anything come in between my mission and me.  This was my purpose in life, nothing more.

Who would have thought that missions ended someday?  I never really thought about the end of the war.  There had been my missions, a little sideline help, and this had kept me content.  It had kept my mind busy, too busy in all honest truth.  I really didn't notice anything else but the war and my missions.  Anything else was nonsense.  I had to stay focused; I did stay focused.

But when the war ended, my vision seemed to have become a blur and I could no longer see anything in front of me.  The bloodshed was finished, the missions were extinct, and my gun was resting under my bed, building up the dust and cobwebs.  My laptop was barely even touched now and that too lay in a corner of my room, silent for once in its long life.  If Duo could have seen me now, he would have thrown a celebration party and thrown my machine out the window with a good, cheerful smile upon his lips. Yes, I was quite positive of his actions and it was wonder on when I had taken note of his daily habits, his dreams, and his corny jokes.

Maybe I had taken more notes than even I noticed.

For many months now, I have been watching over Relena from afar.  The peace bringer was carrying on well enough now; I knew that someday soon, she would never need my watchful eye.  But I really couldn't bring myself to just up and leave.  I had nothing else to do; I no longer had a purpose.  She was really my only guide light at the moment.  It has a sort of irony to it, doesn't it?  Even now, after the war, I still need some sort of mission, an order, to be taken out.  It was like a threatening need in the pit of my stomach, grumbling whenever my eyes weren't on the last Peacecraft.  She really was all I had left now, my only grip on reality.  The soldier in me still lived, even when I thought I had buried it to gain back some sort of humanity.  But it had to be useless; after so many months, why was I still acting like war was still around and just lying dormant within the clouds.  And still, I would think, the thick clouds would grow heavy and darken with rage and they would break apart.  The knives of blood would fall and cut down innocent lives again.  And I would be in the middle all over again, cut but unharmed nonetheless, and with help from my fellow Gundam pilots, I would scream and the rain would realize I was there.  They would take notice and run away.  For I was the one who stopped the war.  I was the one who would get back up even if my body was full of metal.  I would keep standing and I'd drive back war again, to the seas, where they would be swallowed up.

Sort of a selfish thought, right?  Hn.

It had been night when I returned home.  The lights were off as always and blindly I walked into the darkness.  I remember hearing a crinkle under my foot and I looked down.  Under my sneakers was an invitation to Quatre's party, something to draw us drifting pilots back together.  I cursed mentally and picked up the tattered envelope.  I had forgotten the party in my haste of the last two weeks and I had missed the meeting date completely.  I knew Quatre would be upset, but not terribly disappointed.  I was the Perfect Soldier, remember?  If I wish to come, I would go.  Still, though, I should have written some sort of note to tell him I was too busy to attend.  Too busy watching Relena, anyway.  

So I had thrown the letter in the trash and walked over to my unused laptop.  A faint trace of dust had grown over the black surface and I sustained the small smile that wished to break through my lips.  Duo would have fainted, perhaps, if he saw my computer's condition.  As I was taking a seat in my tiny desk and turning my handy companion on, I thought of the long braided baka.  I didn't recall any plans from the boy when the war was over and I wondered then at what he had gotten into.  He had very few talents like I did, but that didn't mean he'd try at least about everything.  Well, except school.  I recalled that the 02 pilot had a strong dislike towards the matter of school.  And yet again, I surprised myself with my ability to bring up the information of Duo Maxwell like a favorite novel.  Which was quite an interesting point.  I remembered myself comparing the pilot with a book, a series to be exact, that wasn't quite finished yet.  The novels each contained some sort of new chapter, or layer, he had and as the novels went further and further into the story, the more pages that were flipped, the more secrets and mysteries were revealed.  Of course, there was the demon in the story that haunted Duo Maxwell's dreams.  There was the idealistic look on what his true love would be like.  And there would be adventures, plot twists, and such deep feelings that even I could almost feel a trace of it touch my heart.  But the series had barely begun and I was positive that there were even more mysteries, more ideas that the pilot kept down deep inside, where darkness crept on its edges like spiders.  I even imagined that there was a secret book that would never be published, filled with the darkest ideas, thoughts, feelings, and actions that not even myself could begin to imagine.  It was laying in the darkness of Duo's mind, dust covering its withering pages and cobwebs circling it in its tangled web.  Yes, Duo must have more secrets than he let on.  I didn't even know the half of it, I knew, for all of us pilots had our deepest secrets.  Even me.

As the homepage for MSN began to show up so I could send e-mail, I looked away momentarily to watch the heavy mist that was settling over the city and blocking the lights of the town from my gaze.  I lived quite high up, away from the noise of cars and drunks.  I was more at peace up in my high hill, watching everything below with my hawk-like gaze.  I was comfortable.  This peace was going to make me lazy, I knew.

As I drew my eyes away from the window, I moved my mouse to click into my e-mail when my hand froze in mid motion.  I remember staring at the blue and white for a long moment, the words and pictures in my head not quite comprehending what I was seeing.  But then it kicked in and load of questions, words, and thoughts attacked my tired brain.

DUO MAXWELL, GUNDAM PILOT, ATTEMPTS SUICIDE

I had a sudden tightening in my throat, like a strong hand caving in around it, and I found it terribly hard to breathe.  I felt like the walls of my throat were brushing together and closing in pure shock and disbelief.

It just wasn't possible.  Duo Maxwell would never commit suicide.  Not my Duo.  I knew Duo, for God's sake!  He would never have the nerve, or the need, to do such a crime.  To cause his own death?  Impossible!  Duo was filled with life and dreams; he couldn't bring himself to do this.

Could he?

Did I really know Duo as well as I thought I did?  Was his whole attire just some sort of mask that kept even me from seeing the truth?  And what about Quatre?  He was so much more observant about the little things that even I grew jealous of.  No, there was no way Duo could be such a faker.  He had to be happy sometimes, that energy and fatigue he had shown off the battlefield wasn't something a depressed person could pull off.  Duo was good, but he couldn't be that good.  Not against Quatre.  Not against me…

So was there a reason?  Was there a reason for him slitting his throat or pulling the trigger?  What had gotten to him that drove him over the edge for the final time?  Would I ever know?

I clicked hastily at the link under his picture.  As the page loaded, a bigger picture of him appeared on the screen.  His face and eyes were beaming at me, the light of the sun in his eyes as he looked like the happiest and luckiest man in the world.  He was giving a wave and cheeky grin to the camera man, his red top snaking up at his neck and his black jacket thrown over one shoulder.

Not dead.

Not dead.

I searched desperately through the list of words under his picture, searching for a sign of life from my pilot friend.  I ignored any other sort of pictures in the message, I was afraid to look at them.  At what they might show.  I scrolled quickly to the bottom of the message and found a faint sweat under my armpits, a nervous chill running down my spine.  The chill of fright, I knew, for the thought that I would never see pictures of Duo's happy face again if he were dead.  That I would never expect a couple of phone calls from him and hear his cheerful tone scream into my ear.  Nor would I ever expect pounding at my door at some ungodly hour as he came to visit me.  I wouldn't see his flesh in real life again and the only thing I would have left would be memories.  Memories that would grow old and fade, disappearing from my brain.  And soon, I would never be able to recall the nice shade of violet his eyes held.  Or summon up the light that beamed off him when the walls of darkness and war closed in on us.  Never would my mind evoke quite correctly what his voice sounded like.  

Shit, I remember screaming.  This couldn't have been happening.

And then I drew to the end of the long message.

Duo Maxwell now lays in intensive care in Sanctuary Psychiatric Hospital.


	3. Ensnared

Title: The Forsworn ~ Ensnared  
  
Author: Sita Seraph  
  
Genre: Angst  
  
Pairing: Unknown  
  
Rated: R  
  
Warning: Suicide, angst, depression  
  
Summary: None yet.  
  
Archive: Go right ahead. Please e-mail me so I know where you are going to throw it, okay?  
  
Note: This story's title is now called Forsworn, with the chapter title coming next. Just so you aren't confused.  
  
  
  
"Heero."  
  
I looked up from watching the white tiles below my feet, up to piercing, gentle pools of light blue. The artificial light overhead caught the reflection within those graceful eyes and I noticed the deep sadness glittering within them. A sadness that etched his face completely when a smile was not brought upon his lips. His face was pale, as I knew it would be, but I did not expect a new height on the boy before me. It was not that he had grown too much, but a confident air was now around him, the difference leaving an unsure child in the darkness, an adult taking his place. I took notice that he wasn't wearing his normal attire: a pink shirt, vest, and khakis; but a light green sweatshirt that covered the palms of his hands and let long, lengthy fingers appear from the dark depths of fabric. The shirt was a little big on him, of course; so, much of his pale, light-muscled neck and shoulders were displayed. Black dress pants covered his longer legs and bright, shiny dress shoes peeked out from the drowning slacks. This look sent a slight chill down my spine; he looked like he had grown a lot in the last few months and the garments he wore made him look alluring, attractive, and innocent at the same time.  
  
"Quatre," I addressed and stood up from the hospital visiting-seat I had sat in for a couple of hours, waiting for the ex-Gundam pilot to show up. I had, of course, come a lot earlier than needed, but I wanted to see if I could get a private conference with Duo Maxwell, without the others. But it had turned out that the hospital required an appointment in advance to see any patients and my engagement was not until a later time.  
  
"Where are the others?" I asked quietly and we briefly shook hands, two friends uniting as strangers after so many months. I took note that he had a much stronger grip than when we had first met.  
  
"Trowa is clearing a few things with the nurses and doctors," Quatre said. He was also equally quiet. It was then that I detected a sort of aura in the hospital that we were now standing in. It almost made me feel like I was in a church and that whispers were only allowed in the halls. There was no noise at all from the quiet passages, besides the soft pattering of a nurse's feet, or the wheelchair that came down the corridor. I wondered then if the rooms were sound proof. For the patient or visitor's sake, I wasn't quite sure.  
  
"You know, asking about Duo's health and any changes since our last visit," Quatre continued, drawing back my wandering thoughts.  
  
"And Wufei?" I asked.  
  
"He is still unable to get away from the Preventors," Quatre answered. "They keep him really busy."  
  
"I'm sure," I said. But in truth, I didn't know if I was really sure at all. We stood there for a moment, an uncomfortable silence flittering down from the ceiling and upon us. I wasn't sure of what I should say to him. Duo was always the one talking for both of us.  
  
"I'm sorry about the party." I murmured quietly, the words leaving my parched lips before I knew it. Suddenly, I realized my terms and I tried to call them back, but already they had reached Quatre's sensitive hearing. Would he think I've grown soft? It was an upsetting feeling on my stomach. I was always praised for my strength and courage; to show weakness now in front of all my fellow warriors was something I didn't want to be seen. Especially at a time when Duo needed all the strength he could receive. Worrying, regrets, and even anger must be discarded. Weakness, just like the war, was no exception.  
  
But slowly, Quatre smiled at me. "I know. I thought you would be busy."  
  
"Keeping eyes on me, Quatre?" I asked softly.  
  
The boy simply smiled again.  
  
"Heero."  
  
Blinking, I was almost startled by the light voice right behind me. I didn't hear anyone creep up on me. The war's absence must have done more damage than I imagined. Slowly, I turned around, tilting my head up to look at sea green eyes boring down at me. Of course, one was barely seen as brunette, rustled hair slid down one side of his face like a veil. Again, as I stared up into those deep, passive emerald eyes, I felt the weird sensation bristling my neck. I held back the urge to shiver and met the forceful stare with my own. Strength, strength, be strong. Duo is fine; he's safe now.  
  
Damnit, that boy was more trouble than he was worth.  
  
"How are you?" Trowa asked quietly, his mere breath caressing my face and I found my hand had fallen into his before I knew it. Again, the strange sensation, but this time it felt like someone was tickling my mind. I held back a second urge to tell Trowa to knock it off.  
  
I suppose you might be confused. I could understand why, since I assume no one has ever had someone SO much like you that their mere presence made your mind itch with buried memories; that with a locked gaze you would know what the other thought. It had been many times that Trowa and I had used this mind language, when others were present. Our thoughts were ours to keep, but together, we shared the same ideals, feelings, and actions. It hadn't taken long for the other pilots to catch on with this eye trading and I remember how Duo would get so angry with the both of us. We would sit in the living room and vaguely, as I talked to Trowa silently, I would watch Duo fidget in the corner of the room and stare at us. Of course, we were not speaking, not verbally. Our eye contact told all. And Duo would get frustrated, always demanding to tell him what we talked about. We, of course, never told him; so he would stand up, glare at us both, and yell some defiant tone such as, "Fine! I'll just go have eye speaking language stuff with Quatre, then!" or something to that degree. In all honest truth, Duo was quite.amusing. I had once caught him just staring at Quatre, a hand closed over the pale man's lips, while he tried to burn a hole through the Sandrock pilot's head. He then gave up with a defeated sigh and left the room, muttering about nonsense.  
  
Hastily, I returned to the present as I remembered that going down memory lane at the moment was not one of the best decisions. Blinking away the blur from my eyes, I saw Trowa smirking faintly at me; I would have to remember to not look at him for the rest of the day or I might spill my secret.  
  
Unless, of course, he already knew.  
  
I stepped back slowly and looked over the taller and older boy with a keen eye. He, too, was no longer wearing his normal attire, except for perhaps the jeans. But they had a darker hue to them than his previous ones. He was also wearing a black turtleneck, something that I found odd. I never did imagine Trowa in black; that was Duo's color. But as I stared at the sweater, I realized the color didn't look too shabby upon the ex-soldier.  
  
"I'm fine," I finally answered and took back my hand from his. Trowa always did have larger hands than I; it was one trait that I would always remember about him.  
  
"And you?"  
  
He nodded slowly in answer. "Worried?"  
  
Damn you, I screamed mentally. "No."  
  
Disapproval of my fib stabbed at my gut and rapidly, I turned my gaze away, almost getting a guilty feeling for Trowa's dissatisfaction of my lame lie. Of course I was worried; who wouldn't be?  
  
Do not show weakness, I told myself and I turned away to look down the hallway. I had found out where Duo's room was in advance after probing a nurse for a half an hour. The trait of knowing your surroundings that the war smoldered into my mind still ran with me; I was quite grateful, in fact.  
  
"Mind summoning me up?" I asked, but I know it sounded like an order. It wasn't needed, really; I knew they would tell me, but I had the urge just to make a command. To, perhaps, make the weakening in my stomach go away.  
  
"Duo tried suicide," Trowa said simply, his monotone voice ringing in my ears and reminding me of my own voice that had haunted me in the war. Odd, maybe we weren't so much the same any longer. Or maybe Trowa was putting up his own mask.like Duo. That stupid mask that almost got him killed.  
  
"I know," I said blankly, turning my head to look back at him.  
  
"After healing to a stable condition," Trowa continued, "he was sent to a doctor for mind treatment. But Duo was.Duo was gone."  
  
"Gone?" I echoed, an eyebrow slowly rising up.  
  
"What he means is," Quatre butted in and I looked back at him, "that Duo would no longer communicate, mentally or physically. He would just stare out the window the entire time. So he was sent here, for treatment.and a final resting ground."  
  
"Are you saying," I asked calmly, "that Duo is stuck here just because he won't speak to anyone? That they are just going to lock him up and wait for him to die? Because he tried to kill himself?"  
  
"It's not just that, Yuy," Trowa interrupted. "Duo isn't.Duo, anymore. There's nothing there. It's like a hollow shell, something he left behind. He's lost, Heero. He's trapped himself within his.his."  
  
"Within his mask," I finished for him and looked away, down again at the white hall. It was so empty. Empty like Duo. The lights were on, but nobody was home. An empty hall and plenty of doors. And each door led to a memory, to a place where Duo hid himself, deep down inside. Each one of them was locked, also; closed tight and dark inside. He wouldn't let anyone inside, not into his home where he was safe in the darkness. He will stay there forever, mildew and mold growing down the frames and cobwebs growing in the corners. One day, far from now, the doors would be easy to break in; but once you did, it would be too late. You would break through the final door and there would be Duo, dead and lying old on the floor. His bony hand was reaching for the locked door, a scream of help permanently formed by his strained features. His braid would be gray and weary, spider webs hanging off his body and across the floor. Spiders would scatter hastily and run back into the nestled corners, away from the light that the open door brought in. You would walk inside the forbidden room and lean down, trying to pick up a fallen friend. But your touch was like acid and as soon as flesh met flesh, Duo Maxwell would crumble into dust. A powder would lie across the barren floor, a beautiful braid the only thing left with the residue.  
  
If I waited, Duo would be dead when I finally reached him, having been in his cage for so long that it killed him mercilessly. Duo was crying for help.No, he had been crying for help for a very long time. But no one stopped to listen to the very soft plea. It was hidden in the laughter, hidden in the smiles. The twinkling eyes were covered in fake happiness. It had fooled everyone. It had fooled all of us. And while we continued on with our lives, Duo was slowly crawling back. Farther and farther he went, into the darkness of a room where no one would find the real him. Into the room where the unpublished book lay in the corner, in the ebony light. And all of a sudden, the door slammed shut and locked itself, keeping Duo inside as well. Trapped, within himself. Pounding on the door, crying for freedom; but no one could hear him. It was too late. It was too late to ask for help now. The mask had done its job; it had fooled everyone. And now Duo was paying the awful price for keeping his secret. He would die in the darkness, slowly and surely, and become like the book, old and worn. Tired and torn. Dead and forgotten.  
  
No, I refused to let that happen. Duo had to still be pounding on the door, trying the knob repeatedly, and trying to reach them. But he couldn't. Someone had to open the door from the outside, someone who could hear his pitiful cries now. Time was running out; tick, tock. Duo would give up. But I won't.  
  
So I was going to do the best thing that I knew how.  
  
I was going to blow that door back open. 


	4. Phantom

Title: The Forsworn ~ Phantom

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: None yet.

Archive: Go right ahead.  Please e-mail me so I know where you are going to throw it, okay?

Note:  This story's title is now called Forsworn, with the chapter title coming next.  Just so you aren't confused…

_In my hole, you can't find me._

_In my prison, you can't break me._

_In my mind, you don't know me._

_In my heart, you can't love me._

Falling.  Deeper and deeper.  Its almost like I'm floating downwards, in the dark abyss of blackened water.  The air currents keep caressing me with gentle laps, with soft touches over my bare skin.  I can feel my hair weaving loose behind me, tugging back with the air and slowing my descent towards the endless hole.  Always falling, there is no end.  It was always so dark.  So dark since I saw the red.  My blood was such a pretty color as it fell against the white.  I still saw the red when I closed my eyes.

Oh, God, its so dark.

I don't know where I am.  I can't feel anything in my body.  Its like my fingertips have gone numb. I can't feel the wounds on my wrists though I know they are there.  I know how deep they are.  I know how long they slash up my arm.  But I can't feel the pain.  I can't feel the blood on my fingers.  Maybe in this black liquid hole I'm in, I'm leaving behind a bloody trail.  It'll hover in the air as I float by, twirling in little beads of red like space.  And just like space, they'll freeze over with silver white.  If you touched them now, they would shatter into tiny pieces and become invisible in the ebony hole.  It was kind of a cool thought, you know.  Leaving behind a bloody trail of crimson behind, so if I lost my way in this dark mist, I'd just follow my own ruby pearls. 

I'm really comfortable here.  I know I'm relaxed as I fall deeper and deeper.  I'm calm, I'm not afraid.  I like it here.  It's quiet and peaceful.  No one can come here.  It's just the blackness and me.  I'm safe and comforted, hidden from prying eyes.  Hidden from feelings, like love.  I remember when I fell in love with your stance, how you would cross your arms and look off, so deep in thought and never paying any attention to the world around you.  Yet, you were alert at the same time, you were aware of my presence as I watched you.  You were aware of the war.  But you never showed it.  That face, that beautiful face, never showed anything.  Those eyes would stare off in the distance; passive and deep like the universe.  We knew nothing; I knew nothing about you.  I remember your mysterious aura, how you pulled me into your web.  I was immediately lost but I wanted to stay lost.  I couldn't figure you out, you wouldn't let anyone in…Until…

You told me a bit about your past then.  About the pain you went through.  How some people just wouldn't listen.  How you had trained your heart out to shove away any weaknesses.  You refused to go through that pain again, didn't you?  You refused to let anyone go through what you had to.  So you fought every damn day and your weaknesses were never visible.  I never saw them.  You never let me.  But were you really just a trembling boy inside?  Were you just like me…calling for help but no one heard?  If you were, I tried to find you…but you locked me out again.

I fell in love with your voice.  How you would talk so softly, so gently, so different from my loud booming voice.  It was so mellow, so beautiful.  Your accent just rolled off your tongue and I would quiver inside from your tone.  God, I couldn't get enough of it.  It was like a lovesick potion, I had drunk too much.  I was stumbling around to make you laugh, to hear you say something to me.  And whenever you did, I would beam with pleasure afterwards.  I loved to hear you speak, even if the most you said was 'baka'.  I fell in love with that word as well.

I fell in love with your body.  Your dark skin taunted me day and night; I wanted to compare my hands with yours.  I wanted to taste you; I wanted to know what flavor your body made.  Oh, the trembling in the knees I would get at the thought of just touching you.  You were like a distant goal, very far away.  Your strong muscles kept reliving themselves in my mind.  Whenever I would hear you groan, I wish I made that happen.  I fully admit it; I fantasized about making love to you.  I would worship your body over and over again, loving the trembling flesh under my wanton mouth.  I dreamt of your lower regions.  Ah, hell, lets say it, I dreamt of your cock.  I dreamt of it inside me; I quiver at the thought of the full completion in that move, how I wanted to be part of you forever.  I even imagined it in my mouth.  Ah, shit, I wanted you so bad. 

I remember the pain though, even though I can't feel it.  All those bullets that imprinted themselves in my body.  All those dagger slashes that left a scar to indicate 'I was here.'  I remember the inside pain, the rejection.  That left a scar on my heart.  But now that heart was in shards, floating around in my body like a broken ship. Waves of blood distorted the pieces of the puzzle, leaving no trace of its departure.  Chunks would run ashore like pieces of wood in the sea then are carried away again with a hopeless sigh of the red wave.  Yeah, you can say you did a nice job on concealing any evidence of your crime when you took that shaft and shoved it in my chest.  You did a nice job of putting needles in my eyes so when I cried, I would forever remember the humiliations I put you through, the needles stabbing my cheeks.  And I would remember the final move, the knife digging into my skin as I dragged the razor up, ending my life.

Do you feel bad now?  Are you sorry for what you did?  Is it your turn to want to scream and scream and scream while tearing your hair out?  Of course not.  Not you.  Never you.  No regrets, remember?  Such a pitiful thing as me wouldn't take you down.  You would acknowledge my death, nod your head in pity, and then move on.  I would be a faint memory in a couple of months.  You wouldn't remember the sound of my voice quite exactly.  You wouldn't remember the moments we had with the same emotion.  And most of all, you would barely remember that night when you shoved me away.  It would be some faint recording in the back of your head, the anger you had not quite the same, my lips not as shocking as it was.  That had to be a good thing.  But not for me.  I would always replay those memories with such clear vision, that they would appear as if a video on DVD.  The betrayal, the rage, the rejection had cut me deep.  Far deeper then any sword or bullet wound could.  It almost seemed as it had cut me in half from the neck down.  I could no longer move but relive those moments over and over again.

I was feeling pain again.  I hated it, I hate you.  Shut up.  Hush.   Don't want to hear it.  I'm not listening to you anymore.  I can't hear your voice, your cries of battle.  I don't want to hear them.  Get away from me.  I don't care what you have to say.  Shut up.  Quiet.  Can't you hear me?  I said shut up!

But you wont go away.  Your voice, your body, your touches still lingers like a burning coal in my mind.  It hurts to think about you but I can't think of anything else but your hair, your eyes, your voice, everything I had loved…it's like a broken record, over and over again.  My mind is cracking now, I can feel that.  My heart wasn't the last thing to depart.  I was probably slowly going insane, this peaceful hole something I created when real hell was licking at my face.

I know I wasn't such the greatest boy, but was this real hell?  To be forever tortured for sins you had committed in your life?  To forever drift in this sinister hole while thinking about how much you fucked up?  I was never afraid of death but if I knew that this was awaiting me on the other side…well, goddamn, I would have chosen to live in agony rather than this.  I couldn't stand hearing you anymore.  I couldn't stand seeing you anymore.  At least, years and years afterwards, I could get over it.  I would be able to stand the rejection with steadier legs.  But I had to endure this.  You were like a phantom haunting my mind, slowly bashing my brain into pieces with the shaft that you stabbed in my heart.  I can't fight you forever; you are going to win eventually.  That will be your greatest triumph, wouldn't it?  Breaking me to a twitching form of limbs.  Years from now, after you had shattered my mind into dust, my body decayed.  My eyes would have fallen out and leave empty black sockets in their place.  My mouth would forever hang open, damning you and my love in silence.  Rotten flesh would trail my nude body.  Some places would be blue and brown, like a bruise, but on closer inspection, it would be just the mold growing on my bones.  Dried and shriveled flesh would flap weakly with the air on legs and upper body, peeling away to show the dried underings.  Holes would be around my body like gunshots, but they would expose the healthy bone and hallow insides.  My flesh would be paler then white.  And my hair.  Oh, my only prized possession.  It would be there no longer, but a few strands on a naked white skull of a boy that died long ago.  A hideous sight… 

But that's all I could think about.  Nothing but you and my second death and the way you finally wore out my mental abilities that I still had left. Then you would kill my body and rip away my hair.  Damnit.  If I could feel sick, I would have puked a long time ago.

Do you miss me?  I miss you.  I wish we could have had something.  I wish so badly.  I don't want to be here.  I wanted to die, not be tortured for loving you.  I thought my death would be the best thing, for the both of us.  But God hated me.  He really did.  So he was striking me over and over again…

I think my mind is cracking more.

None of you ever knew me.  None of you.  You didn't know what I really thought.  You didn't know what I really felt.  I wouldn't ever let you.  Don't ask me why, its too late.  I just never let anyone in, I guess.  I didn't want you to know me.  We had such depressing people as it was, why have another?  So I hid everything from you.  And all of you were fooled.  You never guessed, did you?  You never thought how much I enjoyed killing those OZ soldiers.  You never imagined how many times I wanted to punch some of you and drop the façade.  You never knew how much I was dying inside.  The guilt, the anger, the depression was ganging up and beating me blow after blow.  But you never saw, did you?  God, who knew I could be such a great actor?

But you know I would have changed all that for you.  I would have been happy and cheerful with you.  All those feelings that were bubbling out of the cauldron would be gone within a flash if I had you.  Then I would be Duo Maxwell, the doll all of you knew.  I would become that doll and the person I really was would disappear.  But you didn't like my little doll, did you?  Would you have liked the other me?  Hm?  It was a question to ponder upon.  Did you not want a happy person?  Did you want a broken man?  I could have given you that.  But its too late isn't it?  That's depressing.  Now I was just some sort of ghost.  My shell, my body, was gone, probably rotting underneath the ground.  And I was tortured here, thinking about nothing else but you.  


	5. Departure

Title: The Forsworn ~ Departure

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: None yet.

I walked calmly behind Quatre.  Or at least I seemed calm.  Inside, my gut was doing double flip-flops.  I can't explain the feeling.  I barely knew the answer of why I was so nervous.  I think, perhaps, that the reason why I was afraid was what I might see.  I was still imagining the cowering Duo, covered in webs of decay, and his mouth open in screaming terror but no sound left his parched lips.  I was still imagining dead, dead eyes that stared at a world with no life, with no compassion.  I think I might have been frightened. Delirious, perhaps.  Trowa didn't warn me what to expect.  Quatre never said a word.  I wish I knew what I was stepping into.  I didn't like being curious, blind, and shocked.  I liked _knowing._

We had eventually reached the end of the corridor.  There was no security at this part of the hall, unlike the ones we had passed.  I knew then that whoever lay in these silent, miserable rooms, they would be no threat at all to the patients or the nurses.  They must have been as good as dead.  I didn't like the thought of thinking of Duo dead.  He was still alive in my mind.  He was still bouncing around, giddy, and a beautiful mask on his face.  But that was just it: a mask.  Nothing more.  He was hiding something much, much deeper, shielding and protecting us from it.

Damnit.  I wish I had noticed earlier.

Quatre looked at me from over his shoulder and I gave an affirmative nod.  He gave a weak smile in return and turned his head back around.  He reached forward and turned the silver knob.  A soft click and the faint trace of light crept across the tile floor.  I watched the glittering light with an odd interest.  It was peculiar; for some reason, I never imagined Duo staying in a sunny room.  As I had walked down the silent corridor, I had imagined opening the door and it would as dark as night inside.  But the darkness would stay in the room, as if locked inside.  And if one did step in, the darkness would immediately swallow you up and you would be forever lost in the darkness and become part of it.  Like Duo.  The real Duo.  He had been locked within the darkness so long.  He didn't know light.  He had been in there so long, that he had become part of the black night, no longer able to tell apart from the Joker or Shinigami.

I shook my head wearily to call back my wandering and dazed mind.  Ever since after the war, my mind had been drifting away from me more and more these days.  Relena said I should become a writer…

Eck. 

I watched, almost mesmerized, as the light had started to creep up my thighs.  It was beautiful, actually.  The way my small wallet chain hanging out of my jean pocket would catch the light and flash against the wall.  But the light was suddenly blocked and I looked up quickly.  Trowa and Quatre had entered the tiny, lit room and it was my turn to join them as well.  I took a step forward, the light consuming me and I tore my eyes away; it was so damn bright.  I almost felt ashamed to enter this colorless oblivion.  It was Duo's home now.  They were trying to get him to come back to the light, away from the darkness, but I felt like I was a forbidden shadow in a strange land.  I felt like I had crossed a line that I was warned to never touch.  But it was too late now, wasn't it?  I listened as the door clicked shut behind me on its own and slowly I looked forward, the light still blindingly bright…

When my eyes had adjusted fairly to the light, I recognized what I was looking at.  Before me, across the room and in front of a large, glass window that looked out over the front yard of the hospital, was a wheel chair placed neatly in the middle of the window of nature.  And there was a dark form, silhouetted by the white of the room; lying limply against the back of the chair it rested in.  Layers of hair were obvious as it melted down the back of the chair, nearly touching the floor in lazy curls.  An arm had fallen off the arm of the chair, curled fingers stretched to the ceiling.  Light seemed to wisp by in the palm of a pale hand and so to get even, a dark, threatening shadow had stretched itself across the room and to the door.  The hand on the floor was larger, bigger but still limp and lifeless.  The light caved in around the shadow, threatening to break it into bits.  Soon, the shadow would crawl back to its master as the sun would fall and disappear back under the form it was born from.  

The shadow was Duo.  Not the form in the chair that did not turn around at the presence of three other forms in the room.  Not the body that seemed to be asleep in all aspects.  Duo was never the figure, never the outward appearance.  It had always been a shell.  Duo had been the shadow that trekked along behind the happy, go-lucky form.  No one took notice of a shadow.  No one cared about one.  They only saw the most noticeable thing around them: the mask.  The thing that distracted them from the wilting shadow that flopped along behind. 

K'so.  I wish I had noticed this all sooner.  But…during the war…Nothing was more important then the mission.  I couldn't be distracted.  Hell, I couldn't distract myself when I was on a mission.  My brain would be like some tracking device and once it got a good lock-on, it would cling till death do we part.  I didn't have time to notice things…

And yet I had, at some point.  I remember knowing that Trowa liked black coffee.  I remember Quatre loving the scent of the spring rain showers when they ended.  I remember Wufei's favorite book was an old classic called _The Count of Monte Cristo.  I knew, for a fact, that Duo loved 20th Century music.  I knew that because I had watched him one day._

It had been after a mission.  I was successful, as always, and I was walking to the safe house.  I still remembered the adrenaline pumping in my veins, staying with me like a faint drug, after the stealth mission.  I was jumpy, ready to get my gun off at any sort of threat.  But in the dark night, there was none.  There wasn't even a dog barking in the distance for some fanatical reason.  There was just wind and I.  Oh, and the heavy beat of steel against metal as my gun bumped continuously in the strap that held it.  My feet were still light and quick; the night was cold and it nipped at my nearly bare legs.  My hair was messy as well, I remember brushing the stupid strands away from my face so I could see what was in front of me.  My hand had closed in on the knob; the metal was cool against my flesh.  The door was unlocked and I opened it, stepping into the dark and silent house.  Duo must have gone to bed, but the TV was still on.  Different hues of light flashed across the bare walls and I watched it for a moment.  It was the only thing moving, only thing alive in the living room.  

But the spell was broken quickly; I couldn't be wasting time watching colors of light when I had to catch up on my rest.  I walked over to the TV.  It had been put on mute.  I raised a curious eyebrow, wondering why on earth Duo would ever put anything to silence, especially the TV.  Quietly, I turned the colors and flashes of scenery off and I was enclosed in darkness.  But I made my way across the room just fine and down the tiny hallway to my bedroom.  But I had only taken a few steps into the hall when I noticed something.  I froze where I stood and slowly placed my hand against the wall next to me.  It was vibrating.  The floor was vibrating.  There was no earthquake, but something was making the wall and floors quiver.  I took a step forward and it increased.  I raised my eyes from the floor and looked at the last room in the hallway.  No light tried to escape from under the door but as I watched closely, I noticed that the knob of my bedroom was trembling.  I rushed forward and placed my hand on the warm knob.  Faintly, from the other side, I could hear the booming music, the hiss of the speakers as the song was turned up to its max volume.  Was…Was Duo in there?

I threw open the door and I was greeted with the yells and cries of voices on the stereo, the guitar screeching and playing a rhythm so horrifying loud that I thought my ears were going to explode.  I was winded to say the least, taken aback that a stereo could contain so much power.  But as I peered in, hands covering my ears, I saw Duo splayed across my bed upon his back.  His hair was scattered everywhere in chestnut strands, littering my white and brown sheets with glistening auburn locks.  His legs were bent, his black pants clinging to steel legs, and spread wide.  Hands rested on his heaving stomach, rising and falling against each pant.  He was out of breath, eyes glued shut, as his chest rose and fell with a hiss of air.  Sweat covered his nearly bare form and he would tremble just so from time to time, the faint light of a nearby lamp grazing his skin like a hungry animal, trying to lap up all the delicious fluids covering his body and make him alight in all his brilliant glory. 

_"Dance with the dead in my dreams   
Listen to their hallowed screams   
The dead have taken my soul   
Temptation's lost all control!"_

But his flesh was too pale.  He was breathing too heavy.  He didn't look well.  I had moved forward without knowing and hastily crawled onto the bed.  I didn't hear the music anymore, no more then I believe Duo could.  I had set myself up snugly between his legs, hands upon his cheeks, and calling his name.

"Duo, Duo," I called, screaming till my voice cracked to be heard over the stereo.  I never thought about turning it down.  "Wake up!"

I shook his head violently, but he wouldn't open his eyes.  It seemed that he tightened them more, as if he was trying to block me out.  Me and the music, he didn't want to let me in.  I shook him harder, panic piling up in my throat.  I didn't know what was wrong with him.  I still don't.  But I kept shaking him, trying to get him to open his eyes.  Trying to get him to come back to reality.  For a moment, I thought he was dying, that he had taken some drugs to kill himself.  But, no…I was wrong.

_"In the depths of a mind insane   
Fantasy and reality are the SAAAAAMMMMMMEEEEE!!!!"_

Finally, I slapped him.  Hard.  His head whipped to the side and I heard him gasp.  The force of the blow disturbed his hair and it was carried with him.  Strands of russet fell across his red cheek and hastily I brushed them aside, tilting his head back towards me.  His eyes peeked open, violet hues gleaming up at me.  A tear trickled down his cheek and I was beyond speechless.  I had _never seen Duo cry.  It was odd…something twisted within my gut and though I didn't know what it was back then, I know what it was now._

Duo stared up at me, that single tear taking a very slow course out of the corner of his eye and towards his mass of hair.  Then, startled as I was, he said something.  But the sound never left his lips and I couldn't read what he said for it was a murmured word and his parched lips stuck together.  Suddenly, his arms were around my neck, fingers in my hair and he was pulling himself up towards me.  My stupor was increased and wide-eyed, I watched as Duo rose and nearly brought his lips to mine.  I felt the breath of his body leave his mouth, circled over my own suddenly dry lips, and I waited.  For what, I didn't know.  But I held still, eyes still terribly wide to watch Duo's closed eyes and lips nearly on mine…

And then Duo's grip weakened and he collapsed back onto the bed, features drawn into relaxation as he was suddenly out of his nightmare or dream and passed out into another one.  And all I could do was stare mutely back at his sleeping face.

_"Dance with the dead in my dreams [Hello? Hello Mr. Gein?]   
Listen to their hollowed screams [Mr. Gein?]   
The dead have taken my soul [Lemme out of here Mr. Gein]   
Temptation's lost all control [Mr. Gein? I don't wanna play anymore   
Mr. Gein]   
[Dance with the dead in my dreams [Mr. Gein, it's not any fun anymore,]   
Listen to their hollowed screams [I don't want to play anymore Mr. Gein]   
The dead have taken my soul [Mr. Gein? Lemme out of here Mr. Gein]   
Temptation's lost all control] [Lemme out, LEMMMMEEE OOUUUUUUTTT NOOOOOWWWWWWW!!]"_

"Heero!  Heero, hey!"

I blinked wildly, jerking out of my daydream and looked towards Quatre who stood right in front of me.  His eyes were wide, worried lines creasing near his eyes and I noticed, for the first time, that if Quatre didn't stop worrying about all of us, that he would have visible wrinkles and gray hair by the age of 20.

"Are…Are you all right…?" Quatre asked softly.  I felt embarrassment well up inside me, but I didn't let Quatre see it.  It was stupid to go daydreaming again, off into harder times that I found enjoyable to look back to.  I didn't even remember how I started calling up the memory.  I didn't know how I remembered even the lyrics.  I was flustered, to say the least.  But at least it didn't show.

"Its…its stuffy in here…" I said quietly, my lie floating in the air.  Quatre took the bait though and he smiled faintly at me.

"Yeah, I guess it is," Quatre replied.  "They always keep this room locked up so tight, for no apparent reason."

In other words, Duo wasn't going to escape anytime soon.

"Come on," Quatre urged and stepped behind me.  I once again saw the form in the chair, lazily lying against the back of the wheelchair and head tilted to the side.  The flip-flopping of my stomach started again; I didn't want to see Duo's shell.  I didn't want to see what he had become.  Oh, God, even from here, he looked dead.  Like he had died in his sleep.  Oh, God, don't make me look.

But Quatre had pushed me forward.  I couldn't turn back.  I couldn't close my eyes either.  Slowly, I walked unsteadily forward, the taps of our feet against the floor the only sound in the quiet room.  I licked my dry lips and I grasped onto my self-control with a death grip, refusing to let myself stumble.  I didn't want to see him.  I didn't want to see him.  I didn't want to see him…

But I did.

At first it was just the arm.  My eyes immediately went to it and I hid a small grimace.  Bandages were wrapped up tight and snug on the wilted limb.  I remembered reading about how he had slit his arm upwards, over the artery, and that he was even lucky at being alive in the first place.  Once I thought about it, I knew it was impossible for Duo to be even breathing at this moment.  No one had found him immediately after he tried suicide and he had slit open a vain…

But then again, Shinigami was a work of wonders, wasn't he?

I moved past the outstretched arm and slowly forced my eyes towards Duo's shell.  He had lost a considerable amount of weight since I had last seen him.  The muscle that was once in his legs were shabby and fat, or what I could see before the patient dress covered the rest of his flesh.  He was pale too, very white, and he almost blended in with his white surroundings.  He no longer seemed like the shadow anymore.  He seemed like a sick patient that had lost a will to live.  He wasn't Duo, not even the man behind the damned mask.  

I let my eyes continue their search, carefully securing a blank mask of my own on my face.  I was able to handle Duo's weight problem.  I knew to expect Duo's pale flesh, since he had always been white in the first place.  But I hadn't been prepared for my next sight.  I hadn't been warned.  I was completely off-guard…

Duo's eyes were so _empty.  His head was tilted slightly to the side and those lavender orbs just stared out the window.  Nothing was there on his face.  Total emptiness.  Not aware, but not afraid.  He wasn't tense, but he wasn't relaxed.  It was just a blank stare, a void of nothingness.  Not even the light was caught into those violet eyes.  No emotion whatsoever.  A haunting chill ran down my spine and I drew my eyes hastily away from the hideous, cold sight.  But the blankness was still there, burning and twisting in my mind so hard that my gut twisted with it.  I didn't want to believe it.  I wanted to be sick, it was so ugly.  The emotionless eyes were…were…._

Dead.  That's all I could say to describe it.  It was just a blank void of lilac now, passive and vacant.  Dead eyes.  I had imagined it, but not like this.  I couldn't believe they were dead.  No emotion at all.  

"N-Nothing…" I hadn't realized I said it out loud.  But when I did, I jerked my eyes up to see Trowa and Quatre watching me intensely, a look of pity washing their faces.   They knew what I was feeling right now.  It wasn't right, this look on Duo's face.  Mask or no mask.  It wasn't _right.  I felt so sick right now.  I closed my eyes and put a hand up to cover my own eyesight, trying to block out the light.  I did it successfully, but I couldn't block out Duo's bare stare out the window.  He…He was really gone…_

Hastily, I found myself sitting on the window seat and I took a deep breath.  I needed to get myself together.  I wouldn't fall apart now; Duo seriously needed me.  I took another breath.  He had to get out.  I had to bring life back into those eyes.  Another long breath.  I had…I had to get Duo back.

Sudden movement and I opened my eyes to see Quatre pulling up a chair I had dismissed in my scan of the room.  I watched him put the chair right in front of Duo and sit down.  He was used to this.  He had gotten used to the vacant look.  He even smiled at that doll-plastered face.  God, Quatre.  How much are you hurting right now?

"Hi, Duo," Quatre said cheerfully.  "We're back.  Seems you've really been chilling out lately."

I didn't know what Quatre was trying to do.  Duo couldn't hear him; he probably didn't want to.  So then why go through all of the trouble to speak to him?  I was even angry; was he making a mockery about this?  This wasn't something to joke about.  Duo wasn't in some sort of daze.  Why?  What are you trying to do, Quatre?  My eyes ran to Trowa and he caught my gaze almost immediately.  And then I understood.  It was suppose to help the Shinigami pilot.  But how…?

"Wufei couldn't come today," Quatre continued on.  "Go figure huh?  Ah, well, we have a new visitor though!  I know you've been waiting to see him for a long time.  Heero, come here.  Say hi to Duo."

I didn't know what to do.  This was ridiculous.  Duo couldn't see us.  He couldn't hear us.  But…Quatre was at least trying.  And it was a start, I suppose.  But I felt stupid still as I rose from my seat and walked over to Duo.  I kept my eyes downcast most of the time; I couldn't look at that face for very long.  

"Hi, Duo," I said, feeling stupid all over again.  I shifted to my other foot casually beside Quatre and he looked up at me.

"Look at him," he said.

I couldn't help it; I gritted my teeth.  I didn't want to look.  I couldn't face that it.  I couldn't…

"Heero, look at him."

I gave up eventually and my eyes slowly rose from the floor to look at Duo's empty face.

"Hi, Duo," I said, yet again.  I didn't know what I thought I was expecting.  A sign perhaps?  Like all of a sudden, he was going to snap out of it and look at me with deep passionate eyes and…

My gaze drew to the floor again when I saw no response from the corpse in front of me.

"There," Quatre said, as cheerfully as he could muster.  "Now lets see if we can play a few new games."

"What?" I asked and I looked at him.  Quatre looked up and smiled slightly.  Then he looked away and dug through his pocket for a moment before pulling out a little pocket watch on a gold chain.  I was hoping Quatre didn't think he was going to get a response out of asking Duo what time it was because…

Suddenly, Quatre started to swing it in front of Duo's face.  I stared for a minute, bewildered, when I began to notice something…. Something that wasn't there a moment ago.

Duo's eyes began to follow the swaying watch.

TBC…


	6. Irresolute

Title: The Forsworn ~ Irresolute

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: None yet.

Note: *growls at herself* Ugh, I'm not happy with it but I can't seem to get it any better then this.  Mind you, this is my first time doing Quatre's POV.  Be easy on me.  *holds up paper shields against papers and pens*  Tell me if there were places I could improve this chapter…

Heero hadn't changed much.  He wasn't taller, his hair hadn't changed, and he still wore those darn jeans and green top.  But he had changed.  There was a different air to him.  He had changed inside.  I noticed that he no longer had that perfect form, the form of a soldier.  He seemed more self-conscious, more deeply aware of his surroundings.  He would often fade out from this world and go to some other place.  This new depth to Heero was something I had hoped for, ever since after the war.  It meant that Heero was slowly gaining back the humanity that was punched out of him.

So, I wasn't surprised to see the shock on Heero's face when he saw that simple trick of hypnotism would awaken Duo enough to follow the watch swaying in front of his face.  Whether Duo realized that he was actually responding to the outside world or not, we had finally found something that he connected to.  We didn't know why the watch was the only thing he responded to, but it was a start.  It could have been the numbers.  Or the calming tick that sounded from the golden item.  But whatever the reason, Duo seemed to like it a lot.  I can't remember where I got it from either.

No, I wasn't surprised about astonishment from Heero.  I was ready for all of that.  But…But I wasn't prepared for the deep sadness, the unmistakable smell of regret in the air, that exuded from the perfect soldier when he first caught sight of Duo's empty eyes.  I, for one, have gotten use to them.  To me, it seemed only natural now.  Maybe that drained face had been trying to break the mask for years and now, with a body like a corpse and mind in a coma, the mask could no longer operate and the vacant look succeeded in showing the true Duo to the world.  I have to admit, I was deeply disturbed by my first sight of this new Duo.  I felt so dirty, so sick with myself that I couldn't stay any more then a moment.  But the next day, I went back.  Duo wanted me to see him, the real him.  But why was Heero in regret?  Did he feel responsible? …I know I did.

It was odd that I never noticed.  Of all the people, I should have taken a note.  But maybe I had been too busy trying to break Trowa's mask that I could not notice a second facade that exceeded my lover's.  Duo was a most excellent actor, for I never had a clue that a hollowed void was eating up my best friend bit by bit.  That the person I had grown to know, respect, and love was nothing but a false reflection to the person who was dying inside.  But through for all the pain I was feeling, I could not imagine Heero's.  For it had been Duo that use to punch reality back into the pilot.  For it had been Duo who took the blows when Heero made a mistake.  I could not begin to understand what the perfect pilot felt for Duo.  But it had been that single second, the one part of time, when I had seen a glimpse of a boy dying inside and who forced a similar mask that we all wore in times of pain, regret, and hate.  A training ability that we were never able to shake off.  I have to wonder though…that maybe, perhaps, Duo was able to see beyond Heero's mask after spending so much time around the reserved pilot…And then I wondered if Heero had ever been able too also.

Had Heero known…about Duo's illness?

I would have to ask him later.

I returned back to the present to watch Duo's eyes flick back and forth with the swinging watch.  They were beginning to drop, beginning to fall closed.  White eyelids shadowing and covering glazed violet globes that no longer shined, brightened, or spun with happiness.  I no longer felt sick when I saw them.  I no longer felt anything wrong with these pairs of eyes.

Because, like I said, I've grown use to it.

Suddenly the purple eyes disappeared behind pasty eyelids and I stopped the swaying of my watch to listen to Duo's deep, calm breathing.  Satisfied that he was now fast asleep, I felt Heero's presence push against my side.  I slowly looked up into the burning cobalt eyes.

"What are you doing?" He whispered, his voice blank and monotone like the war.  But I knew he was curious.  He had stopped fooling me a long time ago.

"It's the only thing he responds to so far," I answered just as quietly.  "The doctors tried it on him.  With this, we can hope that he'll answer more intimate questions."  
          "What do you mean?"

"Watch."

I turned back to Duo's seemingly sleeping form and leaned forward on my knees.  My elbows dug into my skin, but I didn't mind much at the moment.  Just think how much pain Duo went through when he slit his own wrist…

"Hello Duo," I said.  "Its Quatre.  Can you hear me?"

A moment passed but very slowly, a hint of a smile curved at Duo's dry and broken lips that had been inactive for a very long time now.  The mouth must have been anxious to begin speaking at some point soon, for Duo was never able to stop talking for even a moment.  Mask or not, I believed that Duo liked to speak, liked to voice his own opinions.  He was a bold character, he had to be.  I can't tell you exactly how I know this; it could have been his figure or the way he sat down, even in exhaustion.  Maybe it was some sort of aura he had to make him look like a strong spirit, I don't know.  But I couldn't imagine a person that went through so much and didn't tell anybody, to be weak and brittle like the doctor's supposed.  They were wrong.

"Guess who else is here?" I asked, continuing our one-sided conversation.  No answer, but I didn't really expect one.  He needed simple questions to ask, just the basics, I knew.

"Heero and Trowa," I answered for him.  I watched as Duo's finger twitched just slightly.  A great improvement and I must have showed it for Heero moved closer until I felt his hip against my arm.  I looked up with a smile upon my lips.

"What is it?" He asked, confused.

"His finger moved," I answered, feeling a tingle run through my limbs.  It was happiness.  "It's a great improvement.  I think he wanted to wave."

I didn't know how I knew Duo so well, even if I knew a mask better then the real person.  I suppose it could have been sitting here with him for so long, talking with him but receiving no answer that took me to a new level of companionship with him.  Maybe he had reached into my head in this coma-like state and gave me the answer.  Who knew?  But I was pretty confident about my guesses.  And I think Heero took the side to believe me also.

Turning back to immobile Duo, I smiled.  "Trowa and Heero say hello too, Duo.  Are you uncomfortable?"

No response at all.  Perhaps he could not feel his body at all and didn't know the answer to it.  Like his body fell asleep and he was just numb from the neck down.  Maybe.

"All right," I continued.  "We're going to ask a few more questions, okay?  You don't have to answer.  But, hey, you never answer anything you don't want to, do you?"

I paused for an effect but Duo remained unresponsive.  He wasn't very happy today. Normally there would be that ghost of a smirk on his lips but he had the most neutral expression that mimicked Heero's.

"Do you miss us, Duo?" I asked softly, leaning harder on my knees as I drew myself closer.  Immediately there was a deep, dark frown upon Duo's lips and I felt relief rush over me; he missed us.  He really missed us.  So we weren't the problem, thank God.  I had a suspicion that he hated us, loathed us in fact, because we didn't notice his problem.  But maybe he knew what a great actor he was and couldn't blame us for not even guessing.  But he missed us and deeply, it seemed.  I asked the next question.

"We miss you too, Duo.  Don't you want to come home to us?"

The frown stayed and for once, I was confused.  This question could take two answers in one action.  A frown for, most definitely not.  Or a frown for, get me the hell out of here.  Maybe…Maybe I could…

"Duo…" I addressed softly.  "Do you want to come home?"

Still, no affirmative response and I glanced at Trowa from the corner of my eye.  He came forward after a second's hesitation and crouched down.

"Do you, Duo?" Trowa asked, using the same quiet tone as I.

I felt hope when I suddenly saw Duo's eyebrow twitch, trying to move.  He was trying to answer us, he really was.  It had to be yes, right?  This was very important to me, you have no idea.  It would mean there was hope, there was a most definite hope, that Duo wanted to come back and he was still trying to reach us.  That now he had our attention; he was still trying to get help.  Please, Duo, give me a definite answer.

"Duo, we need to know…" I pleaded softly.  "Do you like where you are?"

The response was still the same and I sighed heavily, unsure of what to do.  I couldn't assume he wanted help because what if he didn't?  What if he actually did like what hole he made himself for?  What if we ruined what peace he did have?  I couldn't do that to him.  We had caused him so much pain as it was.  We had ignored him abusively; even when there had to be multiple times we could have noticed his breaking spirit.  I felt that we might as well have slit his wrist…He was just saving himself from the agony of life, of terrible friends.  That had to be the only reason for his attempt at suicide…

Something caught my eye and I looked over as Heero reached over.  I was shocked, surprised even, that Heero would even want contact with this vegetable man before him now.  I watched, mystified, as Heero gently touched Duo's lips.

"Do you want to come home?"  He asked and I watched as his fingers slowly pulled down Duo's dry bottom lip.  And I couldn't help the gasp that caught in my throat.

"Yes…" Duo's answer breathed past his lips and into the shocked air.


	7. Frustration

Title: The Forsworn ~ Frustration

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: None yet.

Note: Unbeta'ed.

The lights must have been turned off.  The single hall was dark and gloomy, the shadows creeping down the tiled walls and melting on the floor.  The rooms, whose doors were the only openings, were closed and bolted up as if they have been sealed from the inside.  I stood in the middle of the hallway, staring down at the dark depths of a black corridor with an empty chill surrounding my exposed flesh.  The ice seemed to reach with its fingertips into my skin, pass the muscles and taunt flesh, and into my bones where they rubbed and grinded.  I was shivering, I couldn't help it.  It was just so blasted cold in the airless passage and my feet were bare.  I felt so exposed to the haunting dark hall and to the chilly air that was trying to enter my lungs.  I firmly breathed through my nose, the bitter air nipping at it like a tart treat.

But as I looked on, past the darkness caving in the hall, I could see just beyond my long eyesight a small light.  The light of a room that the gloom tried to hide with the dark hands of night.  I stepped forward, ignoring the sharp pains of frost creeping up my legs.  I walked into the obscurity with the confident air of a soldier, my trembling digits slowly closing into a fist as I fought to maintain control against the rime that kept attacking my nearly nude body.  The prickles of ice were sharp against my skin, like getting repeatedly poked with the sharp tip of a needle.  My body was beginning to shudder so violently now that I was afraid my legs would give out on me and I would succumb to the shadows of winter.  But I was getting closer.  I was almost there.  The light was blinding.  It glowed so bright when the darkness would move away from it a bit that my eyes would dialect and I would be forced to shut my eyes before they were ruined.  As bright as the sun, maybe even brighter.  But I could feel the warmth…I could feel it…

With my eyes firmly shut into another dark hole behind my eyes, I reached out blindly to the light…

And then started screaming as something like a knife sliced up into my foot.

~

One Week Later 

I snapped awake in my bed, none too gracefully, with a jerk into the air.  I was suddenly sitting up and the world spun around me, the corners of my eyes blacking out.  I groaned, shutting my eyes, and fell back with the sheets tangling its tricky silk around my lower limps.  Sweat was built up all over my flesh and like a hungry animal the covers had stuck to it with a burning desire to soak it all up.  But I wasn't hot, no, not at all.  I was still trembling, though not as roughly like my dream, from the cold night that the window let flutter in.  I could almost feel the icy breath of frost within my throat and I coughed hard; it did not relieve the pressure of an arctic hand on my throat.

Opening my eyes again, I stared at the ceiling above me.  The urge to cough was up in my throat again but I forced it back down.  If I made too much noise, Quatre would come in with a medicine bag and worried expression fit upon his brow.  I had yet to remind him that he should relax or he would soon look 40 in a couple of years.  Poor Winner…He did have it rough sometimes with friends like us.  I guess money really isn't everything, unless you're a cold bastard.

I sighed and rolled off, letting a small cough bubble past my refusing lips.  I didn't want to fight the covers to climb across the cold floor to the window.  But I shuddered again, more violently, before I realized that I would never fall asleep in such cold climates.  Grumbling half-heartedly, I tore the sheets away from my legs that they had wrapped themselves so lovingly around.  I crossed the room, glancing at the clock that read 5:00 am as I went by, and slammed the window shut with a grunt.  I winced and looked around almost sheepishly.  Quatre probably heard that one and would be running in to see if there was a problem.

I waited.

And…nothing happened.  Maybe Quatre's sensitive hearing just wasn't the same anymore.  But, nonetheless, I felt a piqued interest rising to how Quatre could have slept so soundly when I had nearly broken the window in my haste to shut it and go back to bed.  So I walked quickly out of the room and into the warm, luscious hall (It was such a wonder I survived the war with my tank top and spandex) and went next door to Quatre's room.  He had insisted that I stayed with him, once he heard about my apartment.  And leave it to Quatre to be pushy when he didn't want to have one of his closest friends to live in a shit hole of an apartment.

I stopped at the door and faced it for a moment.  I almost felt stupid for a moment; why was I imposing?  Quatre was probably exhausted after trying hour after hour with Duo to respond to their presence and failed repetitively.  It seemed that one-time performance was just that: a one-time.

But I was awake now, my nightmare a faint trace in the back of my head, and I was here.  Might as well wake up Quatre and get an early start on the day.  I thought about knocking but decided against it since, if Quatre didn't hear the slam of my window, he would definitely not hear a timid little knock.  Twisting the handle, I slipped open the door wide enough to peek into the shadowed room.  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but I eventually stepped into the warm, almost humid, room.  It had an odd smell in it, almost stuffy.  I shrugged though; it was a hell of a lot better then my room at the moment.

I started across the room to arouse Quatre, my eyes to the floor to dodge the clothes that had been scattered about in a trail from the door to the bed.  But it was then that I noticed that some of these clothes weren't just Quatre's…

Eyes drawing upwards, I watched as Quatre rolled over just in time to snuggle closer into the warm chest breathing lightly into his body.  I blinked once.  Perhaps again.  And then everything registered. 

Trowa was Quatre's lover.  

I stared at the pair for a moment longer, Trowa's arms so tight around Quatre's frail body that he looked like he was ready to break.  But Quatre looked so smashed into his lover's body that they seemed to become one, instead of two beings in the bed.  The covers were tangled around from the waist down, two pairs of chest breathing and pushing against each other rhythmaticly (spelling?).

I was nearly over ridden by jealously.

Hastily, I retreated from the room and away from the peaceful couple that seemed completely oblivious to the world while in each other's arms.  My eyes started to burn but I knew the perfect cure for that.

I headed straight towards the shower where no one could hear me.

*****

I should have guessed it.  It was almost plainly obvious that they had a thing for each other for a long time now.  I don't know why I blocked it out until now, when it almost hit me in the face.  I must have done it sub-consciously, when I wasn't even looking for the facts.  I…guess I didn't really want to see it.

Sighing, I sulked over my piece of plain toast.  I hated breakfast.  Anything sweet in the morning made my stomach do nice twists and turns.  Give me plain oatmeal or some toast and you have one happy ex-Gundam pilot.

Ack.  Humor.  Where was Duo when you actually needed the baka?

I suddenly dropped the toast in distaste, my stomach coming up to my throat.  Stupid Heero.  I couldn't believe I thought of that.  I thought I had accepted the fact that Duo wasn't the Duo I knew.  All right, maybe I did know the true Duo…to some extent.  But he was like some masked shadow or a rotting book with missing pages.  I felt so helpless each day while I just sat in Duo's little corner of the room and watch him stare mindlessly out the window.  It was maddening to not just want to smack him to get some sort of reaction.  But he was immobile, inside and out, besides the swaying of the watch that Quatre sometimes swayed in front of his face.  He never reacted to my voice, never listened to any of the questions I asked him.  I was frustrated.  I was frustrated and angry with myself.  I was a lot of help during the war but when Duo-baka needed my help, what could I do?  Sit on the window seat and stare at those vegetable eyes.  I was getting filled up with remorse.  Maybe I really couldn't do anything to help Duo.  Perhaps…he was too far-gone…

I grunted angrily at my toast and tossed the plate into the sink.  I had to get my frustration out on someone and I couldn't do it to Quatre.  And I didn't want to face Trowa either.  I've been dodging his glances for a week now and I think he is getting suspicious.  If he knew how worried and weak I was right now…

Suddenly, I knew exactly who would take my wrath.  Rushing out of the kitchen, I snatched my leather jacket from over the comforter chair.  As I was slipping it on, Quatre and Trowa appeared one after another down the stairs.  Trowa gave me a once over before proceeding to the kitchen and Quatre stopped to watch with a questioning brow.

"Where are you going?" Quatre asked.  "We are just about to visit Duo after we eat."

I didn't answer at first.  I finished with my jacket and went to the door, opening it while grabbing my keys at the same time.  I looked over my shoulder slowly at Quatre.

"I'm going to get Wufei."

*****

The Preventers' building was cold.  Clutching the jacket tighter around me, I walked down the lonely hall where I had been pointed down to where Wufei should be.  The hall had a dark hue to it; it reminded me of my dream, only more confined.  I shuddered and lowered my head to busy myself by setting up my footsteps to miss the cracks in the perfectly set tiles.  It probably made my walk look a little funny, but it was distracting and I needed a distraction.  I wonder how many times I could dodge the cracks in the floor covering before I would miss…

_"Step on a crack and break your mother's back, Heero!"_

I grounded down my teeth, Duo's old saying coming up from some forgotten memory.  Everywhere I turned, he was there.  His words, his looks, his passions.  They could have been all lies, most likely they were, but they were still there and I held onto them.  It was all I knew about Duo.  And perhaps he had slipped one time and let out a clue of his true self…

_"It's a good thing then that I don't have a mother, ne?"_

I felt a brief smile touch my lips but it faded when I caught sight of a little sign on the last door in the hall.  Chang Wufei.  I reached out slowly and turned the knob.  Despite the cold temperatures around me, the knob was surprisingly warm…

I pushed open the door and when it moved out of the way, Wufei was staring up at me from his wooden desk, his desk lamp on and beaming down at the paper he had been working on, his pencil tip still digging into document.  His glasses were pressed firmly upon the end of his nose, the black frame catching the pale light just like his glasses.  From where I was standing at, the light that radiated off the paper and back into Wufei's face, made his obsidian hair have a tint of brown.  His black piercing eyes stared out at me with indifference, my presence here a shocking one but nothing to get over excited about.  He calmly set down his pencil, the soft tap of wood against wood as it hit the desk, and his eyes never left mine.  I stepped into the warm office, thankful to get away from the cold haunting in the hallway, and shut the door behind me.

Click.

"Yuy," Wufei addressed in a calm monotone.  "What are you doing here?"

My eyes flickered across the room briefly.  A chair, a desk, and papers.  Very Wufei.  "I've come to get you."

"Get me?" He repeated and looked down to shuffle his papers back into order, which, oddly, were already in perfect setting on the desk.

"Yes," I answered.  "To see Duo."

"I'm too busy."

The cold shoulder.  I shivered faintly.  The room wasn't as warm as it was suddenly and I stared at Wufei.  His eyes were now scanning his papers, as if he had dismissed me with the wave of his hand and like an obedient puppy, I was too leave the room as told.  I glowered.

Thank God I broke the order bullshit.

I strode over quickly and Wufei looked up immediately at my quick movement.  Standing now directly in front of his desk and him, I calmly put my hands down upon the desk, covering the important sheets that distracted his attention so much to ignore ME.  I admit, I might have grown soft in the absence of war but I still was Heero Yuy, the perfect soldier.  I've just got a few more emotions that's all.

Anger was one of them.

"Really?" I said coolly, narrowing my eyes to burn into his.  His eyes were steady though and truly, I was amazed.  Not many had been able to stand to look into my death glare but it seemed that Wufei had grown immune to it.   I didn't like it at all.

"Yes.  Really," Wufei answered and tried to wave my hands aside.  But I planted them firmly into the paper below me that even my fingers were beginning to crinkle them up.  He seemed to notice then and looked back up at me.

"Heero."

I must have misheard; did he call me Heero?  He has never called me by my first name; not even in the war.  My, my, so I'm not the only one who has changed from those heavy times.  Whatever he wanted to say must have been terribly important.  Or else it was a slip-up.  My interest increased.

I straightened and watched Wufei stand up.  Now he leaned over the desk, fingertips pressing into the papers below them.  He held my gaze and for once, I thought he was trying to burn me and not the other way around.  I stared at him, into those shadowed orbs, and I noticed for the first time, how passive they were.  They seemed too wise on his face, too deep.  I thought Duo's indigo eyes were like bottomless holes but it seemed that Wufei went much, much deeper.  Amazing.

"Heero," he repeated.  "Did you ever think of the possibility of Duo never waking up?"

Slap.  I felt like he had just slapped me. My eyes widened to stare at him in astonishment and I watched as a frown deepened on his face.  His eyes seemed to have intensified and I felt myself, oddly, being sucked in without any strength to fight.  Gloom covered my eyesight as I entered and I blinked wildly to see again.  But his eyes were so profound…Wufei…Your mask has broken.

"I refuse to see Duo," he said softly.  "I can't see the way he is now, Heero.  I don't want to remember that.  I want to remember the mask.  Do you understand?  You can't make me go."

"Why Wufei…?" I heard myself whisper, something that barely left my lips.  He heard though, his ears were so sensitive like the rest of us.

"Duo had a reason for what he did," Wufei answered just as a softly, his voice lowering with each word.  "He wanted to get away from us, Heero.  Don't you see?"

"That's not true," I whispered furiously.  It wasn't true; Quatre and I had just proved that.

"How do you know?"

"Because he told us."

There was a long silence and the spell must have broken, for the haze in my eyes began to eat away.  I stared at Wufei, who was looking off with perplex thought masked on his face.  His eyes stared at the corner of his desk, sparkled with the light of the lamp beside him.  A single strand of blacken silk freed itself from his pony tail and fell across his cheek.  Slowly, almost in slow motion, Wufei brushed it back with his fingertips and behind his ear.

"You must come," I ordered and I watched his complex eyes shift and look at me from the corner of his eyes.  He then sighed and looked away, turning his back to me.

"I'll come in a few days."

I was satisfied enough.  I turned around as well, away from the light and the warmth.  Away from the hypnotizing orbs that I felt scorching my back as I walked to the door.  There was a soft click as I left his office and into the cold.


	8. Abyss

Title: The Forsworn ~ Abyss

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Quatre was tired.  I watched from my perch in the room as he hung his head low in defeat. The chair turned around in the wrong direction, as he sat in front of his immobile friend.  The light from the window danced across the bright room and reflected itself in the blonde's hair, his cream shirt bearing the tan skin underneath.  He was wearing his favorite black slacks again, polished black shoes peeking out from the pant's depths.  The pocket watch was swinging back and forth from his hands, the symbol catching the day's light and sending it across the wall in a mad dance.

Heero was sitting in his usual spot, the windowsill, as he looked off in the distance with a distracted look on his brow.  The light of the sun passing the window melted in his eyes, making them seem to glow with a brilliant white.  His skin changed to more of a creamy gold look until his attire of a tank top and jeans covered the rest.  He was in another world again, so engrossed in his thoughts that he seemed to forget where he was or who he was.  A hopeless dreamy look matched his brightened eyes that stared at nothing through the glass to the nature outside.

It was beginning to look hopeless.  Duo no longer spoke to Quatre when he started to question about the 'incident'.  He seemed to ignore him even and block out the world…but not like that was a difficult task in itself.  I looked over at Duo, sitting like a dead corpse within his wheel chair.  Today, his head had fallen over the back of the chair and tilted to the side.  Staring out the window in a different angle today, eyes looking into oblivion.  Unlike the light that melted in Heero's eyes, it seemed the daylight could not reach Duo's.  His eyes reflected nothing but a hole of an abyss that grew ever deeper each passing day.

I had always had talent for reading through someone's eyes.  It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul.  And this empty look I would receive from the Shinigami pilot just proved it so.  If I looked hard enough, I would see nothing.  If I dug deeper, all I would find was blackness.  If I tried harder…I would fall inside and be swallowed up in a void of nothingness.  Duo's soul was nothing but broken shards of night.  I would not know where to begin to bring them back together again.  They were scattered everywhere, in a mess bigger than rubble after a horrific battle.  Some pieces were even dust, departing very slowly into nothingness.  We were losing time.  It might even be too late…

Quatre may have the ability to sense feelings of despair and loss.  But I could see the soul.

And Duo had none.

Slowly, I tore my eyes away from the hypnotizing gaze that promised to swallow me in one more time. To show me the terror of a soul that was nothing but shreds.  What could have happened to Duo to make his whole soul depart into pieces of ruins?  If the war couldn't do it, what else was worse?  I couldn't think of anything.

"Ahem."

I looked towards the doorway as a white nurse entered the room, coughing to acknowledge her presence.  I watched her gingerly move forward, clenching a little clipboard to her white dress.  She almost seemed to melt into the room of white and disappear from my view.  Almost.  Red curls peeked out from under her nurse hat, flattening themselves around her tiny ears.  She coughed again and slowly Quatre raised his weary head.

"Yes?" Quatre said, voice quiet.

"Mr. Winner…would…would you please come with me?" The timid little nurse said, head lowering as if in shame.  I raised my eyebrow, curious to what she had to say.  Quatre rose from his chair, the seat making a little squeak in response, and he followed the nurse out of the white room.  I looked over as Heero stood up and started going after them.  I thought about stopping him, about telling him that it was Quatre's affair, but then stopped myself.  I watched Heero's back as he left the room and the door slid shut behind him.

And then I looked at Duo.  Quickly standing up, I walked over to the chair Quatre once occupied and took a seat, my dark blue windbreaker crinkling with my movements.  Hesitantly, I reached across the short distance between us and I brushed Duo's chin lightly.  Such pale, deathly skin.  We had to remove him from this white hell and bring him outside soon…He was going to rot away in here…

After a moment's pause, touching the pasty skin of Duo's chin, I took a deep breath.  I tilted Duo's head back straight and immediately, our eyes locked.  Instantly, I felt myself being sucked in and with little resistance, I let myself in.  You might think I was fearless for doing this.  That there was nothing to worry about.  But…you don't understand.  Duo's eyes…were more different then anything you will ever experience.  The hollowness that you might see…there is something more.  Much deeper, a hole that keeps going farther downwards into a pit of night.  A hole made from Duo's soul, the only thing left in this corpse of a body.  Somewhere, at the bottom of this black hell, was Duo.  Hiding from us.  Curled away and letting the shadows of his soul caress him with their fingertips.  And if I ever ventured deep into the hole…if I ever went far enough…

I might end up just like Duo.  A corpse.  An empty shell.  I wouldn't be locked up in my own mind though.  I would be fastened into Duo's hole, lost within the pit, the Black Ocean of his entity.   I might never get back out again. 

But then again, I wasn't Duo.  He thought he was dead; he had no reason to fight the hole that was swallowing him up.  Unlike Duo, I knew the way was up, while he kept twirling downwards.  If I entered the hole…Maybe I could find Duo and bring us back up.  I could bring Duo back…

It was a chance I had to take.  It was the only way.  There was no other way…

Swallowed up by empty violet hues.  Into the darkness of Duo's broken soul.  I saw the hole up ahead and I was drawn to it without a choice.  Something tugged me ever downwards.

It was too late to back out now.  I closed my eyes as the shadows welcomed me with open arms.

*****

Duo.

Duo.

Duo, where are you?

Duo.

Duo.

This hole, this soul, felt like pain.  It felt like death.  A cold chill of ghostly air that kept caressing my naked form.  The smell of blood in the waves of darkness.  I had been falling.  Falling for what seemed like a century.  And through all that time, I kept dreaming about my past, my memories.  It seemed that this endless pit demanded the history of those within its hands.  I couldn't stop the flood of…pain.  Each memory was like opening an old wound, refreshing it and letting the ruby flow leak free with burning agony.

I couldn't make it stop.  I wish I had some sort of different childhood, just to remember some sort of happiness.  Any happiness.  All this refreshing agony was almost too much to bear.  It seemed to be attacking my heart, making it want to crack and…shatter…

Shatter…

Duo…your heart broke and then your soul.  Is that what happened?  Is that why you gave up?  What happened?  Where are you?

I tried to concentrate through all my pain to Duo.  Try to figure it out.  What happened to him to make such an agonizing torture for himself like this pit?  Why would Duo want to punish himself with memories of the past?  Why did he make this place up?  Why did he…blame himself?

Did he think he did something wrong?  Did he think he needed to be punished for some sort of crime that he tried to take his own life?  Why?  What did he do?  Why did he do it?  WHAT did he do!?

Something brushed against my face.  I was shocked at first.  Something hard that broke upon contact against my cheek.  I had to open my eyes.  There it was again.  Another one.  What was it?  I had to open my eyes.

It took all my will power.  It was so tempting to keep them close and drift off like some sea wood into the ocean.  But I had to see.  I had to know what was in front of me.  And it just left me exhausted afterwards.  So much energy spent just trying to open my eyes…what sort of irony…

I blinked slowly, trying to see through the haze of black in front of me.  It was coming again, something that was drifting towards me in a lazy way…

I watched with tired eyes as a crystal of red floated by.  Blood.  Frozen blood.  Dear God, was that Duo's?  Was he still bleeding?  What…was…going…on…?

My eyes had drifted closed (without knowing.  I was so tired.  I had to rest…just a bit…so…tired…

Oblivion met me in my dreams.  Or, at least I wish it had.

*****

I was…lying on my back.  I was warm, soft, and happy…until I realized that I wasn't supposed to be.  I peeled my eyes open, the terrain of old sheets covering my gaze.  I was lying on a bed; my head propped on a pillow and the covers covering my once sleeping form. 

But I wasn't supposed to be here!

I was confused.  Perhaps, a little lost.  I didn't recognize the bed as one of Quatre's.  It…almost reminded me of a cheap dorm room bed like the ones I'd seen when I had fled for a cover to one of the private schools around the country.  But…why?

Sudden, heavy breathing.  Someone was in the room with me and…almost sounded it was in great deal of pain.  My hand flew up on it's own and threw away the covers, my body lifting to sit up from the lumpy, creaky bed I occupied.

The other form in the room had his back turned towards me, the shadows eating away at his form like hungry animals.  I couldn't quite see him clearly; maybe it was my eyes, the sleep still tearing at them.  It was sorta weird…he almost looked like he was a shadow…

"Hello?" I called, watching the heavy rise and fall of the shadow's shoulders.  He didn't answer me but continued his heavy breathing; head so far low that it seemed it had been cut off.  Something, a darker shape, was trailing down the middle of his back like some sort of uplifted fur or...or…braid?

Duo?

"Duo, is that you?" I whispered.

Suddenly, the shadows seemed to peel away back into their corners, some giving a shudder and melting off the curves of the shaking, panting pilot.  Duo's form materialized back into the living, the golden chain of the Shinigami pilot's necklace catching the pale light from the street lamps outside.  His whole body was vibrating, shoulders rising then falling with a quiver of outward breath.  His right hand was gripping the sheets beside his thigh with desperate need, crinkling the entire bed with ripples of imperfection.  He made a small noise and his head fell even lower, disappearing completely and his body leaned forward just a bit.

"Duo…" I whispered, my words like a forbidden aura in the air.  "Answer me…"

But he wouldn't.  Instead, he started rocking back and forth, his breathing taking a sudden hitch as if he was desperately out of breath.  The bed creaked and groaned against each movement, protesting and begging for Duo to stop…

 "SON…OF…A…BITCH!!!!!!!!" I gasped when Duo suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs and flew to his feet.  His first target was the wall and he ran at it with full speed, kicking it with a shout of fury.  He whirled around again, finally coming to face me, and I took a sudden breath of air.  Pure purple eyes glittered and glowed, almost lightening up his dark features.  They twisted and turned with mad rage, coiling his features into a dark scowl of wrath.  I had never, ever seen Duo so hideous, so unreal before.  His body was radiating with tense ferocity that filled the entire room in its wake.  Quatre wasn't needed to feel such intense, emotional feelings.  It seemed that everything in the room was throbbing with this dangerous energy of hate and lividness.   It was almost agonizing, it almost burned.  Duo wasn't just angry.  He was infuriated.

Duo's hand came in contact with a lamp and it flew across the room, crashing with a thunderous echo in the almost quiet room.  The pieces shattered and spread themselves everywhere as if in an attempt to attack Duo back for his cruelty.  Duo's rage continued on, him moving with dangerous speed back to the bed where his fingers curled around the metal bar that supported the mattress.  He let out a roar, lifted the bed from the floor and slammed it back down.  His hair seemed to be floating with his ire, shuddering like a child that had been hit.  He lifted the bed again and it came down with more force.  Just a little bit more power and Duo would be able to crack right through the floorboards.

"DUO!!"

SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!

Duo didn't even bother to lift it very high anymore.  He just kept striking down, over and over again, with a cry of mad hate echoing off his voice box against each hit.  Holes had finally broken through the thick floorboard but he kept striking, muscles rippling and his sleeves slipping down his sweaty arms against each hit, desperate for some sort of release in his uncontrolled haze of rage.

SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!  It bounced off the walls.

SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!  It had to be echoing down the halls.

SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!SLAM!  It rang in my head like a bad mantra.

"Stop!" I yelled.

Sudden noise.  My head whipped to the door and Duo's crazy pounding ceased.  He made a casual sidestep, covering the bed holes with his own body and…

Click.

I blinked.  The throbbing, intense emotions that had been vibrating off everything in the room were suddenly…off.  Like the switch of the light, it was all over and it left everything silent and foreboding.  I stared shakily at Duo and watched with complete fascination that his body was relaxed.  The glow in his eyes that was just a moment ago showing incensed insanity was now calm, happy, free.  The heavy pant that had taken over his body just seconds before was nothing more but deep breathing, like after an exercise.

Duo…was not just an actor.  He was a demon that could control anything he wanted, including our own minds and our beliefs.  He had fooled us good…and could still twist our minds even if we saw his true self.  For it was true; if we ever heard odd sounds coming from Duo's room, we immediately shrugged it off, coming up with an excuse all by ourselves.  If we ever saw a glimpse to Duo's hidden identity, his mask would easily sweep up the fallen hints.

…Amazing…

The door slowly opened and Duo cracked into a large, wide grin, as if he was the happiest person alive, that he was glad to see the face of the man behind the door.  He walked forward with unbound energy, light with his footsteps, and his braid twisting joyously behind him.

"Hey, Trowa!  Ready for the mission?" Duo called out merrily.  My eyes jerked and for a moment, I thought time froze in place.  I was now standing in the doorway, a mask of indifference upon my brow.

"Yes," I/he answered with an affirmative nod.  An excited grin grew across Duo's face.

"Then lets get the hell out of here!"

I watched with dismay as the two Gundam pilots left the room and very slowly, I hung my head.  I remembered this day, fetching Duo from his room.  But that wasn't the sad part of this whole flashback.

The disappointing thing was that I didn't even notice the holes in the floor or the shattered glass across the carpet.


	9. Futile Part A

Title: The Forsworn ~ Futile – Part A

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Note: This part is dedicated to Blue Lightning!  She wanted it so bad…and finally, its here! Arigato, Blue, for cheering me on when I had my writer's block!!

"I'm afraid that we just can't support him for very much longer…"

I was enraged.  The hospital was going to pull out of their contract with Quatre. They were planning on shipping Duo out. They didn't have enough money.  They didn't have enough food.  They didn't have enough ROOM.  Excuses, mindless, stupid excuses.  They were doing this because Duo was practically brainless.  Just because he didn't move around and gurgle at the nurses and doctors, they wanted to terminate him from the hospital.  They even suggested 'putting him to sleep' like some damn dog.  I was torn between trying to comfort Quatre and beating the living shit out of the redheaded nurse.  I wondered if she even knew who we were.  If they did, maybe they'd think twice about even approaching us with these stupid ideas.

"Its…its all right…" Quatre said softly, playing with the end of his shirttail as he looked up sadly at the nurse.  "I can just take him home to live with me…He'll have enough 'money' and 'food' there…"

Erg.  Why didn't I think of that?  But that still didn't make a difference.  Hospitals were there to support the patients.  If they couldn't keep Duo, why let him in in the first place?  It didn't make any sense.  Why did they want to get rid of him?

Sighing heavily, I looked away, down the empty corridor that lead to freedom from this white prison.  The place seemed so empty here.  The doors closed up like tiny little closets of abandonment. It was quiet as well.  Almost as if a mute hand settled over the Sanctuary Hospital, bringing it down to silence.  There was the ticking of the clock on the wall.  Sometimes the squeak of a wheel chair.  And footsteps from the visitors and the quiet pats of the nurses.  But never any crying.  Not even soft whispers between the patients that I saw as I traveled down the hall. Everyone seemed so dead here.  Almost like Duo.  They're voices have been cut out; their eyes empty and hallow.  A law.  Forbidden to speak or do any rash movements…

Maybe it would be good to get Duo out of this second shell.

"Yes, I think that would be best…" the nurse said quietly.  Even she was quiet.  A law.  Who made these rules?

"Hmm?" Quatre mumbled, turning his head back to the door behind us.  I looked over, eyebrow rising.  Quatre's fingers trailed up to his lips, rubbing them curiously in a thoughtful gesture, as he watched the door cautiously.  Then, for a moment, he seemed to dismiss it, and turned to look at me.

"Funny," Quatre said, smiling weakly.  "I thought I heard something."

"Like what?" I mumbled, looking at the door now.  Innocent but bearing.  It reminded me of a shield.  But whom was it protecting?  Duo from us? …Or us from Duo?

"I don't know," Quatre shrugged delicately, fingers trailing his bottom lip again.  Such an exposing gesture of thoughtfulness, Quatre…and a sign of worry.  "A thud, I suppose."

Quietly, I drew forward to the door again.  Dread was beginning to creep up from the pit of my stomach, deep and gnawing.  I tried to push it aside, knowing full well it was just my anxiety…and not my instinct.

I twisted the knob and pushed the wooden door open and aside, looking in before Quatre.  I think I stared for a minute.  Maybe two.  But I think it was the way Quatre was desperately squeezing the blood flow out of my arm that brought me back to reality.  That made me realize that Trowa shouldn't be on the floor…looking so deadly pale…

"Trowa, no!" Quatre cried and ran forward.

*****

One Week Later

Emerald pools, wake up for me.  Jade orbs, speak to me.  Trowa…come back…

It was almost a week since Quatre and I found Trowa's empty shell on the floor in Duo's shadow.  A shadow that, at first, hooded the shallow gaze the Heavyarms's pilot tried to mimic from the doll of Shinigami.  A glasslike quality that reflected the lighting of the room with indifference. He was in some sort of trance, so deeply in the hole he had fallen in, that the cries he made could not echo off the soft, soiled ground.  For they could never reach me as I sat here minute by minute for seven days, waiting for awareness to shine through those intelligent green beads.  But they never did.  And Quatre kept getting worse.

Tears kept shedding, hands continued shaking, and the guilt was growing enormous.  If Trowa didn't wake up soon, Quatre was going to go over the edge with worry.  Nothing I could say would make the sensitive pilot better.  He just kept blaming himself about not being there or saying he should have known and useless things. Of course Quatre couldn't have known.  I would have never guessed that Trowa was willing to enter depths that he tried so hard to avoid.  He once said he ignored things like that for he could lose a part of himself if he got too deep…

In this case, he lost everything.

I sighed softly, watching Trowa's empty eyes from the seat next to his bed.  My butt felt permanently fused with the seat.  I had barely moved from this position since Trowa had fallen into his silent coma.  I slept and ate in this damn wooden chair.  And my ass seriously was numb but I couldn't will myself away from the bedside for more then a few minutes.  I felt…like I needed to be here more then at Duo's side right now.  That something important might happen and I had to be there to see it.  I had to wait for Trowa's strength to come through and reach to me, so I could take it with a firm grasp and pull him out…or let him pull me in.  Whichever he wanted.

Emerald pools, wake up for me.  Jade orbs, speak to me.

I could hear Quatre crying downstairs, trying to muffle it with a hand, a pillow, anything.  To cry in silence.  To wither is agonizing peace.  Anything but letting a sob escape too loudly, or a let a tear fall too strident.  But I could hear him.  I could still imagine him like everyday before, curled up in a fetal position, knees drawn up to his shuddering shoulders, on the couch with pillow clutched to his chest to replace a man he begged to hold.  I could still watch those flashing tears catch the sunlight dew and hold it, as they fell silently down the pale man's cheeks.  A cry would escape, one of pain and too hard to keep in any longer and he could bring the pillow closer, drowning the sob on its dying note.  Cry silently, little one, don't let anyone know.  Let the tears fall mutely and let the pain grow.

Emerald pools, wake up for me.  Jade orbs, speak to me.

But nothing moved.  The heavy hand of tranquility had befallen us and seemed to have stopped all movement; all sound in its path.  The noiseless cries of a man in pain.  The slow breath of a man in sleep.  And I, a bystander of it all.  The phones were mute. The ticking of the clock suppressed against the hand of serenity.  While I still moved, breathed, and cried, I felt drowned in this moment of time where everything stopped.  I was aware of the pain downstairs that vibrated off the wall and I acknowledged the empty presence on the bed.  But they, these beings of tenderness and vacant souls, did not stir and sat still, forever locked in a cycle of repeating minutes that was drowned in the sea of silence.

Oh, could you ever understand?

Emerald pools, wake up for me.  Jade orbs, speak to me.

I felt locked.  Locked inside this house and myself.  I reached but I could not reach far enough.  Trowa was so far away from outstretched fingers.  And Quatre shunned away from my words of comfort.  I ached for I could do nothing.  The Perfect Soldier could do nothing but be some innocent bystander, watching the soldiers go out and fight and only being able to wish good luck.  It wasn't supposed to be like this.  I imagined that I would always be able to help anyone.  I imagined myself walking into Duo's room and suddenly he would come alive again just by my mere presence. I envisioned all of us together again, laughing over a cup of tea at what Duo had done and that everything was okay.  And then…Duo would turn to me…and say about how long he had waited for me to step into that room.  And how…he…

But it wasn't true.  I thought too highly of myself.  I could do nothing!  I could only watch as Duo committed a deadly sin and Trowa sacrificed himself to help.  And I could not even comfort his lover properly without being gently shoved aside and watch the retreating back. I could only sit here, begging for Trowa to reach out to ME since I was too weak to reach out to HIM.  I am not the Perfect Soldier.  I did nothing right over the war. I only made mistakes and blunders.  The only thing…I ever did right…was nothing.  If I sat in my cockpit and watched, then everything would come into play and peace looked more hopeful.  And then I would be ordered to enter battle again and I would only mess everything up.  I was a failure.  A gaffe then and an error now.  Yet…I still wanted to help!  Maybe…if I helped Duo and Trowa…then maybe my life wouldn't be such a failure.  I would have done something correctly…

…And I could die in peace.

Emerald pools, wake up for me!!  Jade orbs, speak to me!!  Trowa…I need your help!!

I hung my head, low in defeat.  Duo…let me in…let me hear you…let me help…Because I…Because I lo-

//…ero…//

…What?  I lifted my heavy head, staring at the motionless form covered in a thin blanket.  No movement, barely a single breath being taken in by the comatose figure.  I leaned forward slowly then stood up, my knees buckling under my weight.  I felt heavy, useless after sitting so long at Trowa's side, begging for his aide.  Even more futile after I had finally come to terms with the facts that I was a worthless soldier, not worthy of gratitude or respect that people had thrown upon me.  But luckily, I held strong, keeping my legs underneath me and my arms from quaking.  I leaned over heavily on the bed, looking into Trowa's drained, glazed eyes.  The awareness was still lacking, just a hollow shell with a ticking mind.  Yet…something was different this time…when I looked in these shallow pools.  It seemed…to ripple, gently across the dark middle.  A gentle ripple at first, barely noticeable, yet…as I stared harder, I watched the dark irises wave and call out to me, begging me to dive into the dark swim.  I felt…like I was tittering right against the edge of a high cliff, the winds billowing up over the sides the only thing keeping me from going over.  I held my breath without knowing, my lungs screaming for air, yet I would not allow them the leisure.  For one upset of breath, one sigh, could send me spiraling over the edge or falling back on my behind.  And I knew, that falling back would shatter my chance to save the one who understood me the most and the one I desperately wished to hold.

//…ero…//

I took in one last breath to my already expanded lungs.  And I fell.


	10. Futile Part B

Title: The Forsworn ~ Futile – Part B

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Note: This part is dedicated to Shiki-chan…She was breathing over my shoulder as I wrote the last few sentences.  I know she is going to be so happy when she sees I've finally finished it for her.

Also, I want to thank Masamune for giving this back to me so quickly! Arigato, Masa-chan!  You're the greatest beta in the entire world! *glomp*

Such a blinding white light.  I could see it even behind my closed eyelids.  What could produce such luminosity?  Was it the light from my dream, where the light had desperately reached for me but the darkness tried to cave in and keep me away?  Was I in the light, smothered in its white glow?  Where was I?  Could I see?  If I opened my eyes, would I be blinded immediately?  So, I kept them closed.

Slowly, I reached my hand out across the white plane, scraping the exterior beneath me.  As I expected, I wasn't floating…I was lying down on some sort of soft surface.  Yes…soft.   Like…a…blanket almost.  Except…I felt like it was sucking me in, gently tugging on my skin.  It felt good almost.  Like a light massage against my tense joints in my back, fingertips of white gentling pulling me down.  I smiled faintly, my mind growing at ease and my body relaxing.

That was until I encountered something terribly sharp.

Crying out in surprise, my hand jerked back away from the thing that had sliced into my fingers.  Cradling the wounded hand blindly, I let fingers guide themselves to the point of pain.  I immediately recognized the blood that slipped across my skin.  What I didn't recognize was the thing that had stuck itself in my open wound.

Carefully, blindly, I removed it and held the tiny thing in between my two fingers.  It…almost felt like glass.  A tiny shard of broken glass.  It was…so very sharp that it began to cut my fingers just holding it.  Quickly, I threw away the splinter, fingers pricked already and giving their worth of dark blood on my face.  I wiped away the ruby liquid from my face, probably smearing it across my cheek to look like war paint.  

Where was I?  A bright place with broken glass…I couldn't recall anything that could resemble this place in my head.  Nor memory of mine could be twisted into the dream I had set myself in.

…That is, no mind of MINE could imagine such a place as this.

Duo.

Slowly, I dared to open my eyes and was surprised that it wasn't as bright as I imagined it to be.  It was actually quite dim, but the place consisted of nothing but a singular color: white.  I made myself rise from the sucking ground, my eyes blacking out for a second before sight was brought back to me again.  I always sat up too fast and…

Blood.

Gasping in shock, I stared at the glass like trail stained with gallons of blood.  Glints of shards stuck out of the ground like growing weeds, like horrible thorns of roses.  The thorns begged to grow more, stretching their prickly fingers towards the white sky.  To cause more damage, to drink up the red liquid soothing over their clean sharp ends.  And the petals of the rose were the blood, dripping and drying, melting and spreading, across the white plane.  I don't know how I didn't realize it before…but the thick scent of drying blood was heavy and thick in the air.  I was practically suffocating in it.

"Duo!?" I started gagging and covering my mouth with a hand, I looked around desperately. Neither Trowa, nor Duo, was in sight.  Just a trail of blood with broken shards of clear glass.  I was alone…alone in a world of white and drowning in the smell of blood.  Why was I here?  What was it that they were trying to show me?  Were they trying to show me something?

"Trowa!! Duo!!" I called.  I expected an echo, anything but this horrible silence that accompanied my heavy breathing.  But there was none.  Silence was a deafening thing, something called forth when the end had finally come and there was no more tomorrow. That it was time to let the fear grow and realize the truth of the situation:

No one was going to hear me.

*****

I had to have been walking this bloody trail for hours.  I was hoping it would lead me to someone, to something.  I had nowhere else to go.  I had assumed that I was locked in my own mind now, like Trowa.  Or locked in Duo's mind.  I'm not sure how that worked so for the past two hours, I've tried to figure it out. I…had assumed that Trowa entered Duo's mind through his eyes, as he did with me.  But did this tactic suck Trowa in whole?  How could it be?  I didn't understand.  But…then again…Trowa did see things differently then I.  Maybe…maybe there is something in Duo's eyes that could suck a being in and never let them return.

Like Wufei…How he sucked me in the first time he met after the war…

Some…pit…turning endlessly downwards and it had sucked Trowa in, suffocating him and making his cries for help unheard.  The same for Duo.  But why hadn't I been sucked into that vortex?  Was I here…in this forbidden place of blood and white? Was I trapped here as well?

Trowa…must have guided me here.

And if so, where was he?

I wasn't watching where I was going.  I was too lost in my thoughts.  But suddenly I felt one of the thorns slice into my barefoot and pain rocketed up my leg.  I cried out, jerking my foot away from where I trailed too close to the hideous glass, but the thorn stayed with me, sucking itself deeper into my skin.  I screamed, horrified, as I felt the glass disappear into my foot-Right before I blacked out. 

*****

~(soft laughing)~

Duo?

"AHHH!!!"

Duo!?

Deathscythe…I was in Deathscythe!?  Impossible!  It was destroyed, it's gone!  Blinking lights, flashing explosions, battle reigned everywhere!  What the hell is happening!?  And where was Duo!?  I tried to turn my head but found I could not.  Instead…it seemed my eyes were moving on their own, my hands flipping over the controls crazily and shifting the armor suit with perfect ease.

I…I wasn't in my body…

I screamed…I think it was I who screamed and the powerful scythe loomed into view, the green flash luminating the entire blackness of space before it wiped away any threats nearing its precious cargo.  The screen lit up with flashes of light, mobile suits dying in the rage of fire.

Duo…I was…I was in Duo's mind…

And suddenly I could feel the emotions, the tingling sensation of pleasure coursing through his very veins.  His eyes were only for the explosions, the satisfying gleam that was hidden behind the violet pools.  He was frowning, as if sad to kill, but inside he was laughing.  Enjoying the battle and the blood he was creating with his mighty scythe.

~Burn, motherfuckers.  I wish I could hear you scream.~

Duo…I could even hear his thoughts, radiating in my mind.  Why…Why did he enjoy this?  It was war, not a game!  Duo!  What the hell is wrong with you!?

Again, the overwhelming feeling of happiness to be engaged in battle…something I never thought I would hear about since my last battle with Wufei.  The completeness of destroying your enemies, the pleasure drive tingling your bones as you stand victor of the rubble of war.  Was this…Was this what Wufei expressed?  What he was trying to tell me?  Did…Did Duo feel the same way?

Suddenly, Duo smashed his elbow against the dashboard and music was literally blaring out of the speakers.  Loud music…always incredibly loud music where ever Duo went.  It could never be quiet…it had to try to make your ears bleed and go deaf for weeks.

//Nothings all right!

Nothing is fine!

I'm running and I'm crying!//

Suddenly, there was darkness as Duo closed his eyes.  He was still moving the controls, still fighting the un-seeable enemy.  Was he crazy!?  He was going to get killed if he didn't open his eyes!

//I'm crying!//

But that was the funny thing.  Duo didn't die.  Instead, he hit every target, killed every soldier in their mobile suits…

With his eyes closed.

//I'm crying!//

Who was Duo…?

//I'm crying!//

What was Duo..?

//I'm crying…//

Where was Duo…?

*****

I was on my back again.  But this time, my head was lying on its side so I could wake up to first see the blood and growing shards.  I groaned softly, not daring to move from my position incase it would cause any more pain to my damaged foot.  Duo had to have walked on all of that…had to walk across all of the glass…Why…Why did he make up such a place…?

"…ero…"

I closed my eyes tightly wishing for black instead of white.  I needed sleep; I needed to just get away for a week…a month…forever.  So much I didn't know, I didn't guess.  So much and I only had scratched the surface!  My, God, Duo, how could you lie with a smile!?  How could you frown but be laughing inside!?  How could I not see it?

"…ero…"

Was…someone calling me…?  Duo…I wish it was you calling me.  So then you could answer my questions.  So then you could just hold me while I cried with regret.  I'm sorry, Duo.  I'm sorry I didn't see.  I'm sorry I didn't tell you in time…I'm sorry I didn't show you…how much I loved you…

I'm sorry…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…

"Heero!  Come back!"

I felt the floor beneath me begin to shake, but I didn't care.  In fact, I welcomed it and hoped this white world would swallow me up whole.  I was useless, a piece of trash, I couldn't do anything…Duo…

I heard the crack as the white began to tear apart but I refused to acknowledge it.  I never realized things before, so why should I start now?  All I cared about were the missions.  The stupid, stupid missions!  I should have paid attention, I should have saw it all…I had the clues, the hints, and I didn't do a fucking thing!  Stupid, useless, baka!  Idiot!!!  Duo!!! I'm sorry!!

Suddenly, the very floor broke away and I was surrounded in glass and blood…and darkness.  But I didn't deserve the night.  I deserved to burn in a white hell.  Duo…why did you answer my prayers with the shadows of rest?

TBC…


	11. Futile Part C

Title: The Forsworn ~ Futile – Part C

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Falling, falling into the endless black.  I closed my eyes, trying to force away the smothering feeling as night consumed my body.  When I reopened my eyes, the black had retreated, leaving a faint sight of a form before me.  It blurred and would disappear sometimes as the corners where the darkness waited forced themselves over my open eyes.  I blinked violently, forcing the obscurity away again.  The world was spinning and I was falling backwards…falling into the hands of black that would smother and protect me from the world above.

"Breathe, Heero!  You have to breathe!"

I was hardly aware of where I was, or what I was.  My brain was too fogged like my eyes; objects and bodies coming and going in distortion.  I felt a burning sensation, somewhere on my body.  My throat?  Was I not breathing?  I shouldn't breathe.  Then I might take in this icky liquid of gloom inside me, as well.  But I knew, that if I didn't take any air in soon, I would die…I would… 

I tried to breathe.  I did, truly.  But…I couldn't.  Oxygen couldn't be forced into my lungs.  My eyes were open, but I was seeing nothing.  I felt arms were circled around my waist and a desperate cry came from my right.  I couldn't breathe.  It was like I was in space and my lungs were frosting over, quickly followed by my body that was stiffening up like a corpse. 

"He's going into shock…"

Trowa?  Was that Trowa…?

I raised my hand; my whole body was shaking with the effort.  It felt as if my very bones were stiffening up like an old man. Like…I was slipping into a coma…No!  I had to fight it!  I had to breathe…!

But…I couldn't…

My hand encountered flesh, soft skin under my callused fingertips.  I stretched them out across the smooth plain, trying to figure out the owner of the voice who held me, who was trying to call me back from slipping into Duo's trap…

My middle finger stretched itself until it came across a closed eye, the eyelashes flicking continuously against my dry skin.  I knew…this eye…I knew…

Trowa!

Suddenly, desperately, air was emptied into my lungs and I could breathe once again.  Sucking in all the oxygen that the heavens offered me, the light-headedness disappeared from my cloudy head and I could see again.  It was cloudy at first, but soon everything came into focus.  First blurry forms, then more details.  Trowa was hovering right above me, holding me in his lap with his eyes closed and one of his eyebrows was slopped downwards in perplexed concentration.  Quatre, sitting on the bed with us, was on my other side, and was holding his head in his hands.  Creamy fingers were digging into his hair, as if in pain or in a moment of self-blame.

Always blaming yourself, Quatre…

"Heero?"

Startled, I drew my fingers away and Trowa opened his eyes, looking worried for a split second before relief washed over him but being completely covered with his neutral mask.  Quatre seemed to jerk out of his refuge, hands quickly drawing away from his face to expose reddened eyes.  And immediately those hands were around my neck, drawing himself against my body as he tried to hug away the breath I had just sucked in.

"Oh, God, Heero, I was so worried…" Quatre's cry came, muffled against my clothed chest.  He lifted his head, bangs swaying with the quick movement.

"Don't you ever put yourself in such danger again!  Both of you!" Quatre yelled angrily, glaring at the two of us.  Trowa's body expressed surprise before, unexpectedly, a small smile appeared on his face.

"Hai," he replied gently and began to help me up, Quatre quickly moving out of the way.  I leaned heavily against Trowa's helping hand, placed on my back, letting my eyes slip close as the room swayed before me.

"Are you going to be okay?" Quatre asked and I glanced over through my eyelashes to see almost a flash of regret cross his worried features.  Probably beating himself up about yelling at us after…

"What happened?" I heard myself asking.

"I heard you fall up here and I came up-," Quatre started but suddenly, Trowa waved his words aside.

"Its not important at the moment," he said softly.  "All you need to know Heero is that you helped me.  In return, I helped you."

"No," I argued, turning to look over my shoulder at him.  "What happened?  Where were we?"

"What did you see?" Trowa inquired, his own emerald eye glittering with…I couldn't place the emotion.  Almost…self-loath?  What had Trowa seen?

"I think…it was Duo's mind," I answered, glancing over at Quatre's startled and doubting expression.  I continued anyway. "I was in a memory or…something he had made up.  An endless white…room?  It had a trail of glass and blood…"

"So you made it," Trowa said softly, looking away.

"What do you mean?" Quatre questioned, looking perplexed at his lover.

"I directed him there…" Trowa replied, even softer this time.  His head began to lower.

"What did you see?" I asked this time.  "What was that place?"

"I believe it was a thought," Trowa answered.

"A thought?"

"A place that Duo imagined or is imagining.  You fell into a thought he stored away…before he tried to die or what he dreamed up as he sleeps.  I was there once…and I brought you there to see what you could find."

"How?  How did you do it?" Quatre asked desperately, looking almost blown away by what information he had received.  He was gripping the blanket, an anxious, almost disbelieving, look on his face.

"I don't know," Trowa whispered softly.  "I was in there so long…I began to go places as I fell deeper…"

"Fell?" I pressed.

"A hole…Duo's soul…"

"You're not making any sense!" Quatre said.  I knew he was trying to brush away Trowa's words for they sounded like nonsense.  Even I was having a hard time believing that Trowa could control anything when he was in a coma…and yet…

"I can't explain it," Trowa replied.  "I can't tell you…you wont understand."

"Try," I urged.

"Duo…is dying.  Inside.  He's…I…falling.  I couldn't reach him…and…I saw…many things…"

"What?  What did you see?" I asked.

"Memories…Masks…Mistakes…"

~How could you lie with a smile?!~

"Lies…Loath…Love…"

~How could you frown but be laughing inside?!~

"Deception…I never knew…"

_How can you take all my emotions and twist them around?_

It was lies…Trowa was lying!  There was no way…Duo was just sick.  That's all.  Just sick.  Like the flu, or something.  He will get better.  He will.  And when he does, we will all laugh about it…He…We'll…

He couldn't have been doing it all on purpose.  He couldn't!  Maybe, maybe just to hide the pain…but not tricking us for his own amusement! NO!  I refuse to believe it! No, no, no, no!

And yet…

When we would see him frown…was he really laughing inside?  Was he laughing at us, and how stupid we were?  Or was he crying at how blindly we sought?  Who was Duo?  Did I even know him anymore?

Was there ever a Duo?

Was there just the mask?

Was there ever us?


	12. Shards

Title: The Forsworn ~ Shards

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

I think I fell asleep at one moment.  I don't remember when or how.  I just remember waking up from some dream of where I was touching your smooth skin, where I had the chance to run my fingers through your beautiful hair.  I remember waking up with my back pressed firmly to the bottom of the once bottomless pit.  My hair was tickling my nose as it gently blew around from the current of the hole and I let my eyes slip open to the blackness of night.  I thought I saw stars in this entrapped void, gently twinkling as they fell from the sky.  I watched them with enrapt interest, anything to bring my decaying mind away from you.  And as I stared at the shards of light, I noticed that…they were real.  And they began to multiply right before my eyes, more and more in the pitiless black.  I wondered where they had come from and what they represented.  If they meant hope…or a symbol of the future.

They were so beautiful, trapped in the sky above me.  Shining brightly in front of me, slowly growing closer and closer.  I wanted to raise my hand and capture one as soon as they came near so then I could hold the light close and imagine the star was you.  You were always that unreachable goal that faint galaxy among the millions that I never got close to seeing to holding.  Maybe the light could heal my bleeding heart if I held it close enough.  Maybe my tears would stop once the warmth of the star grazed my cheek.  Oh, beautiful warmth, light, star…Please forgive me for my sins.  Please heal this broken body. For once, in a very long time, I felt hope; Hope of something better.

But…then something changed.  The stars…were twisted.  The sparkle that they reflected was nothing but a trick, an outer layer to deceive the weak and hopeful.  Oh, how naïve I was to think that this abyss would give me something to hold and cherish.  How stupid I was to hope that you would have forgiven me. 

The stars were not stars.  The light was not light.  The warmth was not warmth.  They were fake, like I.  Fake and ruthless; a murderer with a smile; a joker with a frown.  And just like I had hurt so many people with my mask, these fake shards of hope were going to cut me deep for all the ghastly things I had committed.

For the shards of light were in actual truth shards of glass.  Each licked with the blood I had spilled upon the ground, their appalling edges brimming with ruby dew.  And now they fell faster, growing closer to their destination.  Me.

I let my eyes slip close once again, blocking out the night and their stars.  I held my breath for some odd reason.  Maybe I was hoping it was just a dream or maybe it was my anxiety growing from just knowing that something was about to happen.  That when those starry tears would come close, their picks and thorns will appear once again and shed the night in red.  For whatever reason, I sucked in my breath and held it, till my lungs were burning for new oxygen.  I tried to raise my hands; to block the oncoming blow that I knew for sure was coming.  But they were trapped against the ground, stuck by something that circled my wrists and kept them back.  And I could only wait, with my lungs burning and my body exposed and spread upon the black table.  And I had done it all.  I trapped myself in here.  I did it all…me and him. 

I couldn't control my lying.  I couldn't control the smiles.  I couldn't control what he did.  I wanted to say that it was all his fault…but it was mine too.  The mask…I was him and he was me.  I created him and told him what to do, what to say, what to lie about.  And then I got so lost thinking…pretending that I was the mask and that what I said was real.  I really began to think I was a happy-go-lucky person.  I really began to think that the sniveling, depressed soul was just my imagination or something that came out when I felt sorry for myself.

But he proved me wrong.

In all actuality, while we played around with smiles and cheerful laughs, the part inside, the real me, was dying. The part in me that tried to break free and show everyone it was a lie.  The part inside that cried every moment of every day, begging for these chains to rust and break.  The part inside, the real me, that wanted help so bad, but couldn't…didn't have the strength to reach out.

He was so much stronger than me.

Like some slave, he would beat me down with pure logic, telling me that no matter what I said to them, what slip I might make, they would never notice.  They wouldn't notice the pain I would express.  They would never notice me screaming in the very next room, for someone to help.  They couldn't hear me when I talked to them as they slept, pleading them to just look harder in hope they would see it.  The pain.  The little hole in the mask.  But…I tried…and failed.  It was true.  They never did notice.  They never heard.  Was I such a good actor?  Or…did they truly not care like he said to me?

He was everything, the mask.  He was this hole.  He was those shards.  He was these chains.

I remember, when I got so close to getting your attention.  That day, when you looked at me so hard…I thought I saw you notice.  I thought I saw that glint of suspicion.  And then…I kissed you.  I was so happy for that split second…to just know that you might accept the real me…or even the mask.  I love you so much; I would have given you anything!

But your fist connecting to my jaw changed everything.  And in the end, the mask won out.  For once, since the beginning of this stupid war, I cried openly…and then slit my wrist.  I thought I would be free from everything.  I was so tired at pretending then trying to get all of their attention.  I was tired of dying slowly inside.  I wanted to cry until the tears burned my eyes out that day…every day. I always thought of taking that blade to my throat…and then held myself back because of you.  There was just that chance…that you might notice, that kept me alive one more day.  But when I hit the ground that fateful night, I knew NONE of them would notice…nobody would notice.  It was too late; the mask had done its worst.  And if I didn't kill myself then…the mask would do it for me.  He would do it for me.

But even in death, he still haunts me.  He still controls me.  He still tortures me. 

It wasn't long before I could no longer hold my breath.  I let it out with a small whoosh, sucking in another gallon of air.  But it was immediately lost again to the pit, as shards of pain rained free upon my bare body.  My eyes shot open, a cry etched upon my lips but it would never escape, except released in silence. I watched the once beautiful stars fall upon me like rain, almost in slow motion.  Their edges would glint with their ruby pearls before they fell in silence across my body, into my skin, or into the ground beside me.  In a matter of seconds, my body was filled with thorns of hatred remnants.  In a matter of moments, the ground surrounding me was nothing but shards of shining pain.  And I could only watch, screaming out a silent cry that never left my lips.  But soon, no longer could I watch.

Finally, a small gasp was released from my lips as a drifting piece of glass attacked with efficiency, straight into one orb of violet.  It dug in, like the thorns of my tears and I could only blink in pain as it tore my eye apart.  Soon, I was crying with refreshed tears, only this time, their color was red.  They dripped down my cheeks, joining the dried tears on the glass upon the ground.  The pain in my eye was immense, attacking with each blink as I tried to get rid of the shard of hate.  The pain seemed to spread with my tears until my whole body was nothing but agony.  And yet my torture was not finished.  Seeing with only one eye, I felt the rise of something wet lift from the ground and slowly begin to surround my suffering form.  Twisting my head, my cheek encountered not only glass, but blood.  Blood of my own?  Blood of my enemies?  I did not know.  I only knew that it was beginning to rise.

I was going to drown.

My hands, bounded to the ground by torturous chains sucked into the very land.  They kept me down while the ruby water rose.  My body would slip under the surface of the blood and I would be lost forever in the massacre I had spilled. I would suffocate in the flesh that I ruthlessly murdered.  Twisting, fighting, then dying by the hands of my enemies and probably my own.

I was going to drown.

It kept rising…and so was I. Floating upon the exterior of the claret pool beneath me.  My locks waved and twisted in the blood, turning them scarlet and stained with the grungy substance.  The chains cackled as my body lifted, reminding me that I would soon be taken under, into the hands of vengeance. There, in that red hell, they would run their hateful claws down my exposed flesh, tearing it open and letting the beads of cherry life become one with the crimson carnage.

I was going to drown.

And then I would cry out and the bitter liquid would empty itself into my open lungs, painting the pink walls with vile contempt.  There would be nothing I could do but accept my bloody fate.  Accept their last moans and their last sighs as death took them away.  Accept their blood that covered me inside and out.  Accept what I, myself, had set before me.  Accept the failure that cowered inside while my other played a part.

Accept what a mess I made, pretending to be who I wasn't.  Accept that without the mask I was nothing.  Accept that I needed the pain, this punishment for not being myself…and hurting you.

I was going to drown…for you.


	13. Tears

Title: The Forsworn ~ Tears

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Archive: Stella Soldiers ~ Aya Maxwell's site: http://stellarsoldiers.homestead.com/stellarmainpage.html

Lunacy in Two Forms ~ Anria's site: http://www.geocities.com/evilchibi

I hated you.

I hated the way you would curl your hair around your fingers; idly talking with a loud voice so the entire world could hear you.  I hated the way your lips moved, that eternal happy smile on your face.  The smile that put diamonds to shame, lighting up your aura like a candle in enclosed darkness.  You would sit on the couch, leaning against my arm and roll your eyes skywards.  You would say sweet things, question the way the universe was, and make witty remarks to my absolute silence and laugh away, like I was chuckling with you.

I despised your scent.  You would be dancing around the room with that stupid bottle in your hand for an hour and never spray it once.  You were even sweating by the time you were finished, hair frazzled and uncombed in drying knots from the shower.  Then you would stop in front of the mirror, give a panting smile to your reflection then spray that disgusting fragrance over your body.  That sweat…the special scent…made you unique.  It gave sweetness while the musky scent of manliness wafted behind you.  Such a strong smell that I hated every time you walked by me…and when the aroma would fade, I would miss the sweet cologne. 

I loathed your touches.  When you would wrap your arm around mine and drag me along, like I was your big brother.  You'd laugh, you'd smile, you'd try to rip my arm out of its socket.  But I never took my arm from yours, just taking in the agony of my muscles being stretched with silence.  I let you lay your head on my shoulder, let you lean your body against mine.  All of these things, that I hated more and more…became almost adaptable.

Except one thing.

I reviled the fakeness that radiated off your every move.  Your every word.  Your every smile.  Your every squeeze.  Your very scent.

I hated the very breath you would take to continue those lying monologues.

I hated the shining white you would flash in my direction that expressed happiness, when you really wanted to slit my throat.

I hated the nights when you would come in and squeeze my hand; squeeze it so tightly and whisper something that barely left your lips.

I hated the lingering aroma that I breathed in every day.  Even when you are gone, I can still smell you…and still miss that disgusting fragrance.

I hated you.

I hated you more and more each day.

Then why, I asked myself, was I standing underneath your window, staring through the dreary night to the darkness that stayed behind that thick glass?  Why did I listen to the soft song of the crickets far off, piercing the night so silence would rush away?  This was supposed to be a moment of tranquilly. For me, to stand here, and think of what I was committing.  Committing a crime that would return all those things I despised, loathed, hated. It was like some dream, or a nightmare, with me, standing out in the cold of the night with the green grass bending willingly underneath my feet.  The window, in my hollow delusion, would bare far beyond me, like a goal I wished to reach.

But was Duo Maxwell my goal?  Did I really want to reach him?

It was hard to admit.  But I missed…that scent.  I missed that warm, flitting aroma that touched and soaked every material of my home.  I missed collapsing on the couch and bringing one of the pillows deathly close, and smelling him, that wonderful, beautiful, missing fragrance. The one that teased my nose with every mouthful of the sinful air…and I couldn't wait to take in the next breath.

I remember walking into my home and I would be attacked with the dying delicate scent.  I would get this creeping, unsettling feeling, right in the pit of my stomach.  The perfume in the room was powerful; it teased my senses, made me want to make it go away.  Yet still, I loved the smell and desired more for my body.  The scent would wash all over my hands, on my pants, in my hair.  It might have been too powerful, if it wasn't so wonderful.

But…that one single fact remained.  That faint trail of lies that melted off him and onto everything he touched.  His deception had grown on all of us like a virus.  It would affect us in the eyes, where we would be blind to truth and honesty.  It would deafen our ears, where the world would grow mute.  His deceit would dampen our aura, so we could not sense the shadows that delimited around the young pilot like demons. Demons that prayed upon his fabrication like desperate addicts.  We could not look through that mask of fraud for it was too real.  As real like the wind blowing against my back, begging for me to move up that tall wall to the brooding glass above.

So real that my very eyes, that I hid from others, could not even see the truth of Duo Maxwell. 

Why…why did he lie?  Why would he whisper secrets in my ear that were nothing but false propaganda? What was this _thing he put himself in, this existence out of a real existence? Was it just some excuse to get away from telling the truth?  To continue his lie, so that the reality he forced upon us would never break?  I wouldn't let him.  I had to know.  I had to know why his lies still stayed with me, why they suffocated my every moment.  Maybe it was because I blamed myself for being so weak against his games. Against his eyes, I was no match to see what was beyond them, to that depth of empty violet.  Against his smile, I would forsake all the worries and doubts that would begin to eat away my mind.  I had to know why he would always take my hand, give me these flitting glimpses of rare, true smiles, and share with me those hollow, empty eyes at night. _

I had to know the truth behind the deception.

Because I had to know…even if it meant killing the last bit of human existence in Duo Maxwell's spirit.

I suddenly grabbed the rope that was hanging off my belt at my side.  I unraveled it quickly, the black-dyed rope coiling to the ground.  I took the hook part of one end and glared once more up at the defying window, blocking the goal that lay behind in silence and in darkness.  

He might have been able to keep his secrets locked up within a closed mouth.

I whirled the hideous rope in my gray-gloved hand then let it fly.  It split through the air like a dark snake, sinking its sharp teeth into the ledge just below the window, and spreading the cloudy night with the clatter it made upon impact.

He might have been able to pretend we weren't there with non-existent eyes.

I climbed up the rope quickly, feet planted and walked up the wall to my destination.  My determination for reality was set; nothing would be able to stop me.

He might have been able to run and hide.

I closed my hand on the cream-colored ledge and I pulled myself up the rest of the way, keeping my balance on the narrow ridge by my knees.  I pressed my hands against the glacial glass and peered inside.

But he was nothing against me.

The window easily slipped open and I crawled inside.

*****

He lay so still.  Like a hidden corpse that was locked away, like a mummy in its tomb.  The room was so dark, that I could barely make him out from his place on the tiny bed.  I could see his loose, lengthy hair spread out beneath him, tumbling over the sides in discarded, curly strokes of brown.  He was on his back, lying stiff with his head rested straight upon his pillow.  A wounded hand was dripping out from under the white sheet, fingers curling under in natural grace.  Besides the bed, the room was completely empty.  Fresh, cool air welcomed itself in the stuffy hot room from the window I left open and I turned quickly back around, shutting the window with a soft click.  I embraced the heavy weight of heat around me; I never did much like cold weather.  Turning back around, I trailed my eyes back to the bed.  I blinked.

Duo's head was now turned towards me.

My eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark.  I moved forward carefully, cautiously.

"You know I'm here, don't you, Duo?" I questioned softly.  The darkness was my only answer, closing in on me in a tighter grip as I drew away from the only light source of the room, the skylight that let the moon slip through glass fingers.  As I got closer to the bed, I was just waiting for Duo to sit up quickly and grab me and pull me down.  He would be laughing at me, grinning like a moron and then say 'Got ya' with a good-humored twinkle in his eye.  But, in the back of my mind, I knew that wasn't true.  That he wasn't playing a trick on all of us.  That all of this was too sickeningly real and that wound on his wrist once shed blood all over the tiles of the bathroom floor.

"What?" I taunted.  "No words today?"

I smirked to the darkness and slowly took a seat down at the end of the bed, completely out of immediate arms reach, incase Duo actually did shoot out of the bed and try to take me, like some monster under the bed.  I watched his turned face, still pointing towards the window as if I was still standing there.

Then he turned his head very slowly into a straight position, directed to me and my still body.

I had this awful, creepy feeling clawing in my stomach.  He mentally knew I was there right next to him…and after all the attempts to awaken him, now he answered me?  Why now?  Did he know my reason for coming?

"Its time to wake up, Duo," I ordered softly, unable to bring my voice much louder then that.  I was fearful of prying ears…and probably more fearful of breaking the deadly silent that swallowed both of us whole in its mocking pit.  Here was my sanctuary that I begged for outside; and now that it was here, I wished it was gone.  I wished that the crickets outside could still play through that barring window.  I even wished I could hear the small intakes of breath from the corpse in front of me.  But just like a dead innocent, he looked pale, lifeless, even doll-like.  His curved nose so pointed, so perfect in this lighting.  The dark eyelashes foiling the pale flesh that covered the pumping red underneath.  But what was so unrealistic was the lips, so chapped and unused that looked fused together, the near white mouth nothing more than decoration and giving no hints of the smile that use to brim there.  Giving no clue of the laugh that would escape.  Giving no allusion that it was ever used before.  It was like a glass doll, sewn together to keep the hollowness inside from giving insinuation of the empty lies lying beneath.

Turning my head away from the form, I slowly took off my backpack.  It creaked as it rested upon the bed and I looked around sheepishly, afraid that someone would hear.  But that was impossible; all the nurses were in bed and the patients drugged up for their nightly dose.  I quickly stood up and turned to my pack, unzipping it with delicate slowness; even if the noise that filled the room was comforting, I also found it a hint of my arrival.

As if Duo Maxwell didn't know I was here already.

Once the pack was open enough, I reached my hand in and shifted through the light contents inside.  Slowly, I withdrew a small, smooth bottle.  Golden liquid flashed against the silky cold flesh, and I stared at it for a moment.  But only for a moment, before I popped off the silver cap and lifted the spray bottle into the air.

Shusht.

Shusht.

I closed my eyes as I slowly, gradually, lowered my hand.  I felt a small speckle of the sprayed liquid reach my cheeks, the little speck of life dying once it encountered my warm flesh.  But the scent did not die and I soon found myself surrounded in Duo Maxwell's scent, like arms circling a long-lost lover.  I embraced that addicting aroma, wrapping my own arms around my torso and gave a rough squeeze.  I was shuddering inside…and I don't know why.  I don't know why this scent made me feel like I could die or worse yet, even cry.  I don't know why it made me feel so good and so horrible at the same time.  That beautiful scent I missed with heartache…

That didn't mean I didn't despise it.

Hastily, I drew myself away from those disturbing thoughts, capping the aroma back on its bottle and throwing it in the pack.  I looked over to see Duo's reaction yet found none.  I frowned slightly and sat back on the bed, staring at the unmoving form with disappointment.

"What do you want…?" I whispered to the corpse in front me, eyebrows narrowing by themselves.  An odd habit of mine, when I was fixed with a puzzle, with confusion and answer just out of my reach.  "You react to me, yet you don't react to your own passionate perfume?"

I didn't expect an answer and I didn't receive one.  I was sure I sat on that bed for another 15 minutes, just staring at the narrow, pale face with conviction.  A puzzle, Duo Maxwell, right in front me.  And he was giving me the clues, somehow.  But why couldn't I see them?

My heart suddenly began to pound as I thought…Harder and harder it went, as I stared at the form, the answer, with hardness, with determination as I thought…and thought…thought…

Could it be that I was blind to the truth because, I, myself was not willing to see it yet?

No, that wasn't right…Of course I was ready for the truth.  It was my reason for being here.  But why wouldn't Duo show me?  He was willing to acknowledge my presence, yet he wouldn't share his secrets?

What if his secrets…were the truth…?

No, no!

There was no truth in Duo Maxwell.

Maybe…

Maybe…I couldn't see the answers…

Because…

His eyes weren't open.

Slowly, my hand closed the space between us and I pushed open his eyes forcibly.

I gasped.

Those eyes!!

Eyes that were devoid of all light…that seemed dead to the entire world.  A retched, familiar feeling overtook me.  Eyes that died against the heart of space, turning into a blank blue-black…where violet existed only in memory…

My hand was suddenly snatched back at my side, staring in complexed horror at those empty violet…the violet I have seen so many times…gone before I could recognize it, gone before I could register…Yet…they were always there, begging me right in the open to just catch that awful look before it would disappear.  That vacant purple that had stared at me from across the bedroom, deep at night, crying with piercing, invisible tears, for me to wake up and see that bearing stare.  That blank lavender that expressed so much heartache, that I could feel it surrounding me every moment as I slept.  Closing in on me, as he kept hoping that I would feel the agony tearing him apart from inside.  It was worse than his lies…for this pain would vibrate, radiate, and bring everything into shreds.  Just the thought…takes my own heart and kills it with each pulsing beat.

"No, Duo…" I begged, tearing my eyes away.  "Don't…Please…"

But it was too late…No!  It wasn't suppose to be like this…B-But…

"No, Duo!" I whispered more furiously, eyes sewing shut against the agony that began to empty itself from the violet pool a mere foot away me.  It began to surround me; the hands of pain wrapping their cold fingers around my neck and squeezing violently.  The daggers of tenderness that stroked over and over again into my already bleeding heart.  I know…I know, Duo…

"D-Duo…" I choked, my own hands wrapping themselves around my neck and giving a horrified, tightening squeeze that brought blackness around my eyes.  It felt the very insides of my throat brushing each other, caving in on the other, as I kept squeezing…tighter.  Tighter.  Tighter!

"P-Please…" I gasped.  "N…Not!  Not like this!"

But I couldn't fight him.  I couldn't fight the agony that danced across my back in pricks and thorns.  My cheeks felt like they were bleeding, fresh salt thrown into the bloody trails on my flesh.  I couldn't resist the insistent, deep digging inside the pit of my stomach.  The clawing, the shedding, as my feelings, my words were unbound and tumbled right through my rasping lips.

"You're so selfish…" I whispered, my own hands still bound to my throat.  "You only think of yourself…Did you ever think of us when you hid away?  You're afraid.  You're afraid of your own secrets…of your own lies that you kept feeding us…"

And even as I fed my truth to Duo…I also saw his…

"How could you lie so easily to us!?  Was it just a game to you?!  Were you really laughing at our foolishness, how easily we were led by a simple word that slipped past your lips?"

I saw that stupid night all over again.  When the light played tricks in the darkness, where he tried to tell me all his feelings, handing over his heart with no second thought…

"And when it became too much, you did this!  You tried to die, instead of letting everyone else know how fucking screwed up you are!  You threw yourself away in a dark room and threw away the key…you didn't even think twice about us…"

I saw the bathroom all over again, the blood that he was laying in slowly filling up, painting his nearly naked flesh in crimson.

"Why did you lie in the first place?  What controlled you to take such a desperate measure to destroy everything that could have been?  What were you really afraid of?…You were afraid of the darkness.  But in the end, you locked yourself up in it."

I saw the abyss, black walls leaking with glass and hot, angered scarlet.  The abyss that throbbed with agony, intensifying the pain I was already in.  I was surrounded in ruby blood, shining crystals, and heavy night.  And each piece of glass held a memory, a new, fresh pain.

"You were afraid of yourself.  So you made someone up…only that someone took control of you."

I was going to lose my mind!  I clawed at the air, twisting around and looking around, trying to find the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top.  But everything was the same!  I had no direction to take, no light to swim to.  And the glass began to attack, scraping my skin, or digging in, giving me something to dwell on, to die in.

"So the question is… Who is Duo Maxwell?  Is it you…or is it him?"

I began to feel light-headed, and I successfully moved my hands away from my red throat, clutching myself and trying to pull myself together to fight the agony swelling around me in like a tornado.  I wanted to die, just like when Duo wanted to die.  I wanted to…to…

_~I wanted to wake up every morning and wish I could scream in anguish.  Just scream, scream, scream, scream, and scream!  Until my voice gave out and I could no longer mutter a single word.~_

I wanted to scream so bad that my lungs hurt from not doing so.

_~I wanted to tear out my hair and throw the ugly brown locks away and feel my naked skull.~_

I wanted to take my hair in clumps and pull it all out; pull it out and feel my skull bleed in agony.

_~I wanted to take this blade in my hand and drive it everywhere in my body.~_

I wanted to die, to throw myself out the window and fall to my death.  To smash that addicting aroma right into my skull and let myself bleed to death while surrounded in that scent.

_~You would never want to scream bloody murder.~_

Yes, I would.

_~You would never want to tear your hair out.~_

Yes, I would!

_~You would never want to kill yourself.~_

Ye…No!  No!  Never!

"Duo, stop!!" I screamed, finally finding the strength to take control of my own voice.  And, to my utter surprise, I felt it stop.  I felt it wither and die, all in a flash.  I was released from the fingers digging in my lungs.  I was freed from the dagger that kept raping my heart.  I felt the clawing in my body repent.

I heard a soft sob break the once again silent room and I realized it was from me.  I was crying.  It hurt so much.  It was slowly burning my cheeks, like slow acid that refused to wash away.  But this pain, this dull pain, was nothing to what I had experienced just a moment before.  And yet, I still felt the need to speak.  To tell Duo one last thing…before he came for me again with his dark demons…and I would lose my mind.

"D-Duo…" I said weakly. "Why…?  Why…?"

Silence, besides my heavy breathing and light crying.

"Why Duo? Why…do…I still find myself encircled around your lies…?  Why do I still wake up every morning…and smell you in the pillow next to me…?  Why do I feel like…your eyes are watching me when…I turn my back…?  Why do I…sometimes feel your hand in mine?"

Silence.  My tears increased so much that I could no longer see.  But they would not fall.

"Are you…really…going to let him win?"

I felt a soft rock in the mattress I was on.  Two dribbles of salty liquid fell away.

"Are you just…going to lay down and die…?  And leave me like this…?"

I looked shakily at my companion, heart throbbing in my chest.  I couldn't see anything at first, for I had to furiously blink away the blur caving in from the bottom of my eyes.  But when I could see, it felt like my heart had completely stopped all movement.  Duo Maxwell…was staring at me.  But not like before.  Not that empty hue of lavender that saw the world like a doll trapped in glass.  Not the blank stare that reflected no light that shed into the nightly room.  Not the pit less abyss that sucked in every thought, every movement and twisted it around, emptying it into the shards of a soul scattered in a chasm.

No.  His eyes were definitely different.

For now, they sparkled with painful tears that slipped down that pale flesh…and the moon faintly glowed in that broken gaze.

I smiled sadly, even through my own watery substance.  I touched his cheek and took away one of those hurtful, acid-like tears.

Wake up, Duo.

TBC…


	14. Stirring

Title: The Forsworn ~ Stirring (12)

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst?  Supernatural?

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: When love gets out of hand, out of control, and out of mind – where beliefs are lies.  This will be Heero's last chance.

I was never an outcast before.  I couldn't be; I was too vitally important for missions and with my sensitivity to everything around me, there was no way I couldn't be part of the group.  Yet, here I was, rejected from Trowa and Heero's experience.  Not only would they no longer speak of the matter, but I also couldn't get in.  It was like Duo's magic had seeped into them; Duo was like a blank wall to my reach.  I would brush nothing; there was no feeling, no warmth.  It was like empty air, hovering, and hovering, and just waiting to be cracked.  And now they were just the same.

Heero had been very quiet the past few days.  He didn't talk to anyone and his thoughts reached such a depth that they made me dizzy.  When I tried to reach out to him, I would always get something back that was cold and numbing.  His emotions were frozen to me, blocked off by some surreal force that invaded all my doings.  And he was so open before.  His thoughts were so easily displayed on his face, the daydreaming look in his eyes so freely shone. But it seemed, lately, that those dreams had died.  Broken, into a million little pieces, and the shards laid scattered around Heero's red-rimmed eyes.  If he had been crying, I didn't know.  If he wasn't sleeping, I couldn't tell.  He was so far away from me.  His hair was even more straggly then ever before, as he stopped taking up the habit of combing his hair.  His shirts were always dirty, sagging on his muscled body and his pants were too big for him, always dragging at his feet that he constantly tried to pull up around his hips.

Trowa, I knew, seemed to be blaming himself for something.  What he dreamt, or maybe saw in Duo, seemed to…change him somehow.  He seemed more aware, more awake, than I can recall.  He wasn't jumpy at every noise, but he seemed to know what was going on all the time now.  He was acting more cautious about my feelings now, but also became more distant from me than ever before. He never spoke to Heero about what they saw.  They never said anything to each other the whole week.  Trowa didn't sleep as much but I guess this was okay for the most part.  He started to read a lot, as if trying to catch Wufei's habit of knowledge, but sometimes I got a strange feeling that he was looking for something in the library.  Searching page after page for some answer of what happened to him perhaps…

It was a beautiful morning.  I was seated on the window seat, leaning against Trowa's arm, that he had wrapped around my neck.  His fingers were playing with one of my shorter blonde strands, thumb and pointer finger massaging the hair caught between the two digits.  I had opened the window wider with the little knob, letting fresh, dewed morning air drift into the stuffy house.  Of course, the air cooling my slightly damp forehead wasn't real, but it was easy to pretend.  L4 was a beautiful place to live in, not as hectic and un-orderly as L1 and L2 were.

Heero was off on love seat against the wall, reading with unseeing eyes of a book he had pulled randomly off the shelf on the other side of the room.  I wondered if he was even reading the words on the pages or simply scanning them, as if looking for some sort of information.  Or maybe not even seeing it at all, instead being in some sort of daydream that didn't reach his eyes.  It was hard to tell.  It was so hard to tell anything anymore.  My ability was completely useless.  First Wufei, then Duo, now them.  It was hardly fair that I was completely left in the dark part in all of this. But everything was so far-fetched.  How could Trowa be 'in' Duo's mind?  How could Heero follow him?  Impossible; simply impossible.

Maybe that was the reason why Trowa distanced himself from me.  Because I didn't believe his story.  But who could?  Could you honestly think someone in a coma could reach out and drag someone in with them?  It wasn't mentally possible.  But then again, this heart of mine wasn't possible either. 

I was ten when it happened.  I was outside, reading an old classic novel that my father insisted upon me.  It was so hot outside; I could feel the burn on my skin, the heat from the concrete underneath my chair.  The ice from my ice tea had melted long ago, the fresh cut lemon dreary and wilting against the sun's hot rays.  Sweat coated my forehead and neck and it felt so wonderful to feel whenever the wind picked up.  I had looked up when I turned the page of my book and I decided that I would go inside to finish the novel.  As I stood up and shifted my swimming trunks, I felt suddenly dizzy.  As if I was falling.  Like when I spun in my father's chair so fast I had to find something solid and close to look at so I wouldn't get sick; when I would raise my hands into the air and literally feel the gravity around me, pushing my arms the opposite direction of the spinning.  I felt that gravity then, weighing me down so hard and fast I didn't have time to comprehend, let alone fight back.  I remember the biting pain as my knees sank to the ground too fast, too hard.  I tried to breathe, tried to blink away all the blurs caving in all around me.  I remember falling back; I couldn't hear anything but my breathing.  Hard, breathless, dying, desperate gasps of air that wouldn't fill my closed off lungs.  I wheezed and choked, my hand flying hopelessly up towards the sky to catch my fall.  But gravity pushed me down with all its force, my back slamming into the chair until both it and I were forced out of the way.  I collapsed, my head bouncing off the pavement, as I couldn't stop the fall.  Pant.  Pant.  Pant.  It was all I could hear.  The desperate rasp clogging up in my throat.  And then came the pain right in the middle of my chest.  I arched up, air hissing inwardly as I could not scream.  The pain went from my chest and slammed hard into my brain.  It was all I could feel.  All I could hear now.  And then, it was so bad that it went away.  It just stopped and what I felt, saw, or heard was nothing.

Nothing.

I was out in the sun for one hour before someone found me.  I had extensive burns since I didn't put on any sun block.  But that was insignificant.  My heart had stopped.  My brain no longer operated.  I was nothing for a day, a corpse.  It was what I remembered – a blackness, so whole and complete.  I wasn't scared; I wasn't anything.  I was apart of it.  I breathed with it.  It was like a life; a life I joined unwillingly.  I moved with it, I was one with it, I was everything around me.  I didn't feel anything.  I really didn't know anything.  I was just this hole, forgetting everything about Quatre Winner, not even remembering I had a body.  It was like returning to something I went away from, becoming apart of something much bigger.

And then, suddenly, I was torn away.

Then, only then, was fear and pain.  Fear of losing something, fear of the unknown, fear of returning to something that was in the distance, something I was a part of once but didn't want to any longer.  I was back in a constricting body, no longer able to freely move, to be part of something much larger.  I was incompetent again; a little boy who had a bad heart, a heart too large and couldn't pump his blood fast enough.  I cried then on my hospital bed against the pain and fear.  I lost something and I couldn't have it back.

I was wrong, though.

I felt it still.  That darkness, somewhere deep in my chest.  A hole right in the middle that sucked in everything around me.  The emotions, the expressions, the knowledge.  I knew where my family was, waiting outside and talking to the doctor, without being told.  I felt their grief through the walls.  I was horrified, overwhelmed by this combined energy of sorrow that was drawn in…into this tiny hole that couldn't accept such a large weight.  I couldn't breathe again.  I was choking on it all, so heavy…that sometimes I wake up in the middle of night and still feel it.  That ache that tried to kill my new heart.  The pain that brought tears streaming down my face.  The agony that suffocated my whole being, saturating it with misery. I couldn't breathe!  I couldn't breathe…

"Quatre?"

I turned around quickly, clutching my painful chest.  It throbbed lightly, beating slightly in pain by the refreshed memory.  Trowa was watching me with concern but it was distant in his gaze.  I knew he was worried but it was like all his emotions were being drawn right into the center of his being and mashed all together into a little ball, so I couldn't see it anymore in his gaze.  So I couldn't know what he felt through all that darkness blocking my path.

"Yes?" I said weakly, turning my head back out the window.  The ache was slowly easing away, more so because I felt I was losing a piece of me that had beautiful green eyes, but I didn't remove the hand from my chest.

"Did you feel something?" He asked and my chest constricted painfully another time.  I took a moment to let it surpass.

"If I did?"

"Then there'd would be hope," he answered.

"Only hope in my memories, Trowa," I said sulkily, drawing away from his arms and getting up.  This wasn't right.  The pain should have gone now.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"I-." My hand fell away from my heart and I clutched my arm that throbbed lightly with pain.  I stared at it, finding my knees weakening.  Then, again, harder.  I fell against the wall, mouth open in a silent cry.  This wasn't right!  The pain should have gone!

"Oh," I finally managed out.  Trowa stood up and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Quatre," he called.

I couldn't answer him.  My mouth was suddenly chalky, cracking.  I coughed, trying to clear it from the rust I felt inside.  It was like I hadn't talked in ages.  I was losing my voice.  I coughed harder.

"Quatre, take a seat," Trowa instructed, pushing me back down onto the window seat.  "Heero, call a doctor.  I think Quatre is having trouble with his heart again."

Not again…

"I'm-fine," I said, shaking my head as my hand shakily clasped onto my parched throat.  "It-It's not me."

"Not you?" Trowa questioned.  "What do you mean not you?"

The phone was ringing.  Quatre lifted his stinging his eyes, closing them briefly – they felt so dry.  So…dry…

"Hello?" Heero said across the room as he picked up the phone.

There was a pause.  More, dreadful silence that dragged on and forced Quatre's eyes open, desperately trying to soothe his parched throat. He glanced over at 01.

And he was shaking.

And Quatre knew why.

Quatre stared at Heero, eyes suddenly brimming with tears.  He knew why Heero's hand couldn't stop shaking, even when he tried to grip the phone with both hands.  He knew why Heero collapsed into the nearest seat, leaning forward as he tried to listen to the person on the phone…and tried to stop from crying.  He knew why.  He knew why even before Heero hung up the phone with a curt 'good bye' and he looked at his fellow friends.

"Duo's awake," he said.


	15. Depiction Part A

Title: The Forsworn ~ Depiction (13A)

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst?  Supernatural?

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

Archive: _Aya and Sonny's Aenai Ai - http://aenai.steelsong.com/_

_Silver Crucifix_ – http://www.silvercrucifix.com

Beyond Forever - http://crimson.gwyaoi.com/beyondforever/index.html

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: When love gets out of hand, out of control, and out of mind – where beliefs are lies.  This will be Heero's last chance. 

Dedicated: To Blue, for her birthday.  I made my deadline! Though, ahem, it might have a few typos.

Finished: 1-4-03

A.

I closed my eyes against the world as it passed me, blocking out the bent trees and coy grass out the car window.  We were traveling back to the hospital as calmly as possible but I could tell that Quatre was efficiently going over the speeding limit.  I felt anxiety, even a little terror, coil in my stomach and I hated it.  For the past week, I had felt nothing and thought nothing.  I couldn't – I couldn't think of what I saw or of what I knew.  I couldn't will myself to do so.  It was like the door had been shut and I didn't even bother trying to find a key to the lock.  I had lain outside, drained emotionally and physically.  I didn't care for my appearance and I let myself lag around with the clothes that I happened to find on the floor near me.  I forgot my body even had to eat until I felt dizzy and sick and so, so tired.  When I was awake, I almost always felt the need to throw up.  But, sleeping in my bedroom was my lethargic release, I could let go of the world, and Duo for just a few hours when I closed my eyes.  And still I was so tired.  I couldn't think about anything because it was…too hard.  I just accepted what was around me and went with it.

I never imagined that a door could open with a single phone call.

Suddenly, I couldn't stop thinking; to stop…now __that____ was too hard.  I felt nervous and hungry and I suddenly took up the habit of nibbling on the little hairs on my knuckles.  Now, every time I closed my eyes, there was no longer the bliss of emptiness but that white room.  That endless white room where blood spread across the ground like the slow bloom of the reddest, darkest flower.  Where thorns of clear agony stood to attention, begging for the kiss of white, pure flesh.   The trail that held memories and life on each glistening tip; it reached out to each fool that stepped near that white plain splattered with angry scarlet; their jagged hands extended out with sharp nails, whispering the truth in their bloody massacre.  The truth of Duo Maxwell.  And they would hold onto his reality with their cold ruby fingers, bargaining with a life that wasn't theirs to have.  Oh, how cruel was that trail of splattered life.  Life that was so dark but held no glimmer – like the dying chestnut braid that wilted over the back of the hospital chair.  I imagined the braid and I opened my eyes to picture it on the window.  The background blurred away and all I saw was each fold of that once glistening hair.  Then I could only think of that trail as it suddenly replaced that thick mane.  And I couldn't even tell the difference between the two.

"Heero," Trowa called from in front of me.  "Lets go."

Giving a small grunt in response, I opened the car door and slid off the seat.  I looked up at the building as I shut the door and sighed nervously, thinking that beyond the stones of the outer wall, and past the halls where a mere cough was muted behind shaky hands, and straight through the caged door that locked the man within a room that they swore was helping him. In my mind's eye, I stared at those lifeless violet orbs and with a sinking feeling…I knew.  I knew that when I walked through those steel doors, down that tomb hallway, and stepped in that hell of heavenly white, I would see no emotion from those eyes ever again.  Because I felt, somewhere deep within my chest, that shard that had taken root under my skin…and it told me I had broken something.  I had snapped something into two, into millions, and with it I took what life that was still breathing in Duo's corpse.

I followed my companions lifelessly, my eyes staring into a world I did not wish to be in.  A world where those mauve eyes did not look at me like I wanted him to.  Where those brief moments of bodily encounter meant nothing more to him then a handshake with a stranger.  Where a smile I thought I knew so well was just a painted grin from a perfect drawing, just there to fill in the space of the master's face, even though the portrayal did not reach the creation's eyes.  The person that I knew with such detail was nothing more than a fading figment in the back of my mind; a drawing thrown on the wall by a sketchy artist to cover up the blundered canvass underneath.  Now it was being shown to the world in its relative fakeness.  No one had bothered to look a little bit closer and see the dark hue shining underneath those light and bright colors.  But if one, if only one person wondered.  If only that person had taken a blade and ripped away the painting…out would gush that river of blood, scattered with glass of joyous glee.  If, of course, that person was not too late.  For over time, the two canvasses had merged and if one took a blade to that painting…you they would destroy both realities.

"This way, Mr. Winner," the redheaded nurse ushered, leading us down the hallway in single file.  I stared ahead at the appointed room, my upper body suddenly and dreadfully numb.  I couldn't find the voice to speak or the muscle to blink.  Then why could I still walk?  How could I still love someone, some painting, when I didn't understand its depth, when I could only see the outer layers?  How did I know that everything was so far from over…

The nurse opened the door and out spilled the room's light across the floor.  I loathed this fakeness, this light that cascaded over the true darkness, pinning the shadows to the floors and walls.  It chained the gloom of each and every one that entered its path of light, showing off the hideous and gruesome doings of each person.  If there was only some way to hide from the daylight.  If there was only some way to keep some secrets unknown.  For us, anyway.   For me.  I felt so exposed under the white glow, everything I've done and felt splattered over the wall with my shadow.

Not for Duo.

I stepped inside after them.  The intense light, the intense pain sharpening in my skull before retreating, blinded me.  I peeked open my eyes after a moment and the first thing I noticed was that the wheelchair was empty.  My breath was suddenly constricted in my chest and my anxiety increased ten-folds. I glanced over after Quatre who was still peeking through his eyelashes, looking almost afraid of the thing he dared to hope for to finally come. But Trowa stood solid in the light, staring through its luminosity and I treaded through his gaze's path.  And if I had had a hard time breathing before, I couldn't tell at all anymore.  For there was a figure sitting on the windowsill, silhouetted by the daylight shinning through the pane less glass.  Trickles of obviously long hair fell down around the figure and over the seat, wilting over the sides at the shaggy and uncut ends.  The figure was turned towards the window, hugging one of his legs while the other stretched across the bench.  He was completely still, almost like he was in shock…or…or dead.  A self-supporting corpse glancing out the window towards the life that surrounded him…but could not enjoy himself.

"Duo…" Quatre whispered painfully.

The figure turned quickly, but not quick enough.  He seemed so considerably slower in this room, like time had stopped on this one moment to mercifully kill my heart over and over again.  To spread this instant longer than humanly possible; to engrave that profile of Duo forever in my head.  I didn't know if I wanted to cry or scream.  To run towards him or run away in fear of the man I did not know.  But no choice on my behalf could be made.  I was lost in this moment, stumbling for a threshold against those painful eyes and knowing that for the rest of my life I would never forget them.

I could not move and could not breath.  I felt myself falling, though I knew I stood strong with my feet still on the ground.  The world spun around me and I imagined that plane of white again.  I imagined that trail of blood and the time I had lain beside it, screaming for Duo to hear me, to forgive me for my sightlessness.  I remembered when the place had broken and the world around me had fallen apart.  Carrying me, the blood, and the glass into the darkness deep within those eyes I could never describe to you.  And I stared at that face, at the lips that once held the portrait smile and, to the eyes that now only cried that broken world. And I knew that the glass within me was speaking the truth.  For the thing I had broken fell from those eyes.  Those shattered, black eyes.

One eye teared clear holy liquid.

While the other, bled only blood.


	16. Depiction Part B

Title: The Forsworn ~ Depiction (13B)

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst?  Supernatural?

Pairing: Unknown

Rated: R

**Archive****: _Aya and Sonny's Aenai Ai_ - **

_Silver Crucifix_ – 

Beyond Forever - 

Warning: Suicide, angst, depression

Summary: When love gets out of hand, out of control, and out of mind – where beliefs are lies.  This will be Heero's last chance.

Note: Trowa's POV now.

B.

"So you found me," he said.  "What are you going to do?

"What are you going to do, Trowa?

"What are you going to tell them, Trowa?

"Tell them the truth?

Laughing. – "You know there is no truth.

"What's wrong, Trowa?  It hurts, doesn't it?  Oh, it hurts – it hurts like this!

"All of you caused this! This…This is yours.  He made it just for you, Trowa.  Drown in it."

Maybe the tears represented the past and the future.  For they all blended in this one moment; where a devastated clown cried red, the droplets falling from the lifeless skin and onto his white shirt, melting into the strings of worn fabric.  He turned away quickly in rejection to the forms before him, another tear spilling free from his bleeding eye and smacking the glass, where the ruby bead stilled in pain, before slowly sinking down the window and leaving an agonized trail behind it.  I stared at the colored tear as I lifted shaky fingers to my own eye, feeling the emotions pour forth in one rush.  I was suddenly drowned in it and I closed my eyes as the wave covered me completely, submerging myself into the darkness that I loathed and loved at the same time.  I heard Quatre's footsteps as he rushed forward to his friend, but in my head, it was someone else.  Someone else running up from behind me, quick and lethal, and I couldn't turn around to block the tackle that would take me down.  I felt the pierce in my back, the harsh breath speaking right against my ear, as my killer smiled.

"This is for you," he whispered with a smirk.

I opened my eyes, filled with self-loathing and anxiety as I watched those violet orbs twist and close away from Quatre, trying to stop the arms from encircling his trembling flesh.  My eyes were dry now but that didn't stop the knowledge from leaking forth and filling my head.  Knowing that in those shards of red and white, lying at the bottom of Duo's eyes, there was something lurking there in the pieces and it had now been released to true reality.

And it was my fault.  I had stepped into that shattered black hole, opening doors that had been locked and leaving them wide open afterwards to let the demons attack the defenseless soul trapped inside.  It had been I who had reached down and broken Heero's chamber, the crushed pieces falling into the hole and destroying the world within.

**"When will you stop torturing me?" the boy screamed, throwing the front of his body to the glass, clinging onto the firm material and trying to wiggle away from Quatre's words; slapping away****his insistent hands.  His lips begged against the glass for this dream to wilt and die like the body he had tried to slay; his fingers trembling as he pressed them to the glass, as if trying to slip them through the strong material and fall straight through the air into the arms of Nature, who would hug his form with the hands of wind before guiding him quickly to the ground that would rush to greet him.  **

**Quatre massaged the trembling shoulders of his lost friend, whispering into his ear to find the reason, the sanity of this broken soul; that the cold window was in fact real; that the breath of his loyal friend was true.  I watched Quatre's own hands shake, the emotional exhaustion suddenly taken over him when it hadn't even begun yet.  And perhaps it was Duo's own emotional overload that was making him cling onto the American, dizzy with anxiety, fear, and disbelief that wilted off every breath from the longhaired companion.  I slowly looked over at Heero who had remained completely silent during this entire time – and I was surprised to see that he was barely breathing, that his eyes had completely glazed over in that hazy, lost look, and he had slumped against the wall near the door.  I walked to him without even knowing and as soon as I was within reach, he flung himself at me.  I stumbled back in surprise and found my arms automatically around his neck; he did not hold me back.  Instead, I felt his face buried into my chest, his eyes blinking dry against the fabric of my shirt.  Uncomfortably, embarrassed beyond belief, I took him by his shoulders and tried to push him back.******

"Its my fault," he whispered.  I froze and glanced down at him slowly.  He didn't look up at me but hung his head lowly, with shimmering blue eyes staring at the bright, glistening floor.  His hands were defeated at his sides, something heavy placed down on his shoulders, and nearly taking him down to the floor.

"Your fault?" I repeated.  "What did you do, Heero?"

"I…I took something from him…" Heero mumbled, ghostly eyes snaking their way across the ground and onto Duo's turned back, Quatre resting his forehead on one shoulder blade with exhaustion weeping out of his eyes.  There was painful relief all over Quatre's face…and equally so there was sadness that seemed to be killing him.  But there was nothing I could do. 

"What did you take?" I asked, slowly turning my head towards Heero.  But when I turned back, he was no longer there.  Instead he had rushed forward towards Duo, crawling hastily onto the window seat, and ripping the longhaired boy away from the glass.  Duo gasped, startled, and instinctively curled his arms towards his body to fight Heero off.  Heero was squeezing both of Duo's shoulders, making the lost man wince and his tears flow harder, red streaks like war paint stuck to one side of his face.

"Stop it!" Duo screamed, tossing his scarred face aside and trying to force this dream away by not meeting the face of one of his battle companions.

"I'm sorry, Duo," Heero said, shaking the boy back to look at him, his blue eyes wide with serenity.  Duo stared at him, his tears coming to a stop and burying themselves at the bottom of his eyes.  Quatre laid rejected to the scene behind them, fingers resting on his lip as a tear slid on top of his upper lip.  He wiped the dew away and the remnants soaked into the dry cracks of his mouth, just as a slow red tear from Duo's own eye came into contact with the corner of the American's lips.  Heero stared at it before slowly closing the space.  I watched with sudden and harsh clarity even if the sun bursting through the window made it hard to see the two figures leaning towards each other.  Duo had hooked the fists of his hands into Heero's shirt, either pushing him away or drawing him closer.  The only thing I could see in that sad moment was Heero's bushy hair and one of his saddened azure eyes; the rest of him was shadowed like Duo by the intense rays of the shinning yellow streaming through the glass.  Their shadows stretched across the floor, stopping to rest at my feet and I stared at them, watching as Heero's shadow adjoined Duo's.  I looked up to watch Heero kiss away that ruby droplet, lips barely making contact with that pale, pale flesh.  And just as slowly, he pulled away.  In that moment, the sun hid away behind a bold cloud and the two men twisted back into reality.

"I'm sorry I didn't see you, Duo," Heero whispered, his eyes caressing Duo's face.  Duo's eyes had closed in that moment and still laid shut, his body slowly shaking harder.  Heero's hands snaked their way down that trembling form, trying to still the shivers lacing down Duo's nerves.  I watched as Duo's eyes slowly peeked open, chest raising and falling heavily and quickly.

Both eyes cried only clear this time.

"You're real…" Duo whispered and he suddenly broke apart right into Heero's hands, who caught the form all too willingly in his arms.  I watched Duo bury his head into Heero's shoulder, the broken pieces slowly fitting themselves back into their mangled holes.  Some were not perfect; some hung loosely.  But those shards lying at the bottom of Duo's eyes were finding their place again, not one being left behind.  Dust particles were blown away by Heero's mere breath against the pale neck and strong arms tightening on that thin waist glued all the broken pieces back into their parts.

Duo slowly lifted his head from Heero's strong shoulder and looked at me.  At first, I thought he was looking at me.  But as I watched, they seemed to grow larger and disbelief seemed to shower slowly on his pale flesh.  I stared at him, gradually realizing that he was, in fact, not looking at me at all but at something behind me.  Slowly, I turned around.

Chang Wufei filled the doorway.

"I guess I'm running a bit late today," he said to announce his presence.

I whirled around quickly and looked straight at Duo.

I was horrified to see all the pieces lying broken again all over the floor and in Duo's eyes.

**Finished: 1-28-03**

**TBC…**


End file.
